BEIJING Feb 16 (Reuters) - China produced a daily average of 1.703 million tonnes of crude steel in January, data from the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) showed on Wednesday.
The figure was up only fractionally from the 1.699 million tonnes per day produced in December.
Production is likely to drop in February, largely because of the week-long Chinese lunar new year holiday, analysts said.
"Steel production in February might fall slightly due to slower operation rates during the spring festival, and a few steel mills have met some technical interruptions at their blast furnaces," said Hu Yanping, analyst with the Custeel consultancy.
Following the completion of an energy efficiency campaign over the second half of 2010, which forced many steel mills to reduce output or close down, many in the industry predicted a significant surge in output over January.
Daily production reached 1.79 million tonnes in the first 10 days of the new year, but fell back to 1.695 million tonnes over the Jan. 11-20 period as a number of big mills began overhauls.
Output over Jan. 21-31 recovered slightly to reach 1.709 million tonnes per day, CISA said. (Reporting by Ruby Lian and David Stanway, Editing by Chris Lewis and Jonathan Hopfner)
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