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China's Baosteel says overhaul to lower Q4 sales

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-11-02 17:36

China's Baoshan Iron and Steel Co (Baosteel), the country's largest steel maker, said on Monday that its scheduled maintenance will lower product sales in the fourth quarter by 200,000 tons from the third.

The maintenance will include overhauling the hot-rolling production line of its stainless steel unit and one flagship cold rolling mill, President Ma Guoqiang told an online briefing, without providing further details.

Ma said that the company planned to sell 22.26 million tons of steel products in 2009. The company said last week that it had sold 16.3 million tons of products in the first three quarters.

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Baosteel's sales volume is in line with its production.

The steelmaker, which posted on Thursday a 6.7 percent rise in quarterly net profit on higher sales volume, said it planned to produce 23.7 million tons of crude steel in 2009, nearly 5 percent lower that targeted earlier this year.

Baosteel also forecast that its internal and external environment faced unfavourable factors in the fourth quarter.

Oversupply has weighed on the physical steel market since early August in China, with record crude steel output in August and September boosting inventories.