Baosteel's Third Quarter Net Profit Drops 16% YoY

Baosteel's net profit in the first three quarters was 10.602 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 186.15%. However, in the third quarter, it achieved a net profit of only 2.551 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 15.96%. In the third quarter, the company achieved 5.807 million tons of iron production, 6.571 million tons of steel production, and 6.183 million tons of steel products.

The company said that in the third quarter, the growth rate of domestic steel demand has somewhat declined, and the utilization rate and output of steel production capacity have continued to decline since June. Domestic steel prices fell sharply from the end of the second quarter to a slow rise after the mid-July lows. However, the overall steel prices in the third quarter did not return to the second quarter. In the same period, the quarterly long-term price of imported ore climbed to its highest level during the year, and the overall profitability of the steel industry fell sharply in the third quarter.

The company expects that the supply and demand relationship of domestic steel products will remain stable in the fourth quarter, and that the price of steel products will rise sharply; the price of the ore will decline, but it is still at historically high levels.