The poor performance of steel products at both ends

The reporter recently learned from Hebei, Hunan and other steel producing provinces that as the economic development rate is reduced, economic development methods and macro-control methods are changed, due to overcapacity in the steel industry, low-end, high-end product homogeneity competition in the industry appears to be low. Benefit situation. The development stage of iron and steel enterprises driven by factors and scale expansion has passed. Changes in the level of steel consumption brought about by the reduction in demand for medium and low-end products and diversified demand in the mid-to-high-end market will force industrial restructuring and transformation and upgrading. Experts suggest that strengthening demand-oriented upgrades and vigorously developing the steel consumption industry will be an effective way to absorb excess production capacity.

-- Low-end homogenized tons of steel earn only tens of yuan

A number of experts considered that at present, most of the downstream demand of the iron and steel industry is saturated. Due to overcapacity, the equipment, products, and technical details of all companies are homogenized and the low-end products are at the same level; at the same time, the positioning of high-level production lines fails to achieve a difference. The competition of low-end, high-end homogenization products is fierce. The degree of industrial concentration and low concentration of steel products have led to weak market price control. Iron and steel companies have generally entered the difficult stage of high cost and low efficiency.

Zhao Xizi, honorary president of the National Association of Industrial and Commercial Metallurgical Enterprises Chamber of Commerce, said that over the years, domestic construction steel consumption has remained at around 50%. The government has intervened in the adjustment of the product structure of state-owned steel enterprises. The major state-owned steel enterprises have basically given up wire rod production, blindly increased the board-to-belt ratio despite market demand, and conducted high-level redundant construction. The utilization rate of plate mills was only 61.4%, resulting in a decline in plate efficiency. At the same time, private enterprises are aiming at the huge demand for steel bars in infrastructure construction, decisively expanding, and there is a strange phenomenon that low-end long products have higher profits than high-end boards. In the first half of 2008, one ton of wire rods was sold at 5,900 yuan. Until now, the utilization rate of rebar capacity has reached 87%, and the convergence rate of production and sales is good, but the price has dropped to 3,500 yuan/ton and the profit has been meager.

Zhao Changwen, head of the Industry Research Department of the Development Research Center of the State Council, said that at present, only some cold-rolled products that supply household appliances and the automotive industry are in short supply, but with the release of new production capacity, there will soon be an oversupply. Li Yidong, deputy general manager of Hebei Iron and Steel Group Tangshan Iron and Steel Co., Ltd., said that in addition to steel products, the majority of domestic steel production capacity utilization rate is below 80%, and the cold rolling capacity utilization rate is only 73.8%, and steel products are almost fully surplus. According to statistics, in 2013, the average profit rate of the national steel industry was 2.16%, the loss was 23.4%, the profit rate of 77 key large and medium-sized steel enterprises in China Steel Association was 0.62%, and the profit rate of Hebei's steel industry was 1.4%. Profit is only tens of dollars. In the first quarter of this year, many private enterprises with good profitability previously suffered losses. Hebei Jinxi Iron & Steel Group, which specializes in the production of H-beams, lost an average of two to three million yuan per month.

Chen Wenling, chief economist of the China International Economic Exchange Center, said that most of the steel produced in China is crude steel and general steel, a large number of steel plates for five-star construction steel, military raw materials, and large planes, and many special steels, special-shaped steels, and high-end steels. Need to import. The overcapacity of China's steel industry is a structural surplus of too many low-end steel products and high-end steel products. The reporter learned that Tangshan City has an annual output of 80 million tons of steel, and most of the companies only produce and sell hot-rolled or steel billets, and the percentage of deep processing of steel products is only 6.5%.

Experts believe that the current stage of development of the iron and steel enterprises driven by factors and scale expansion has passed. With the economic growth rate down, economic development methods and macro-control methods changing, the demand for low-end and mid-end products will be reduced, and the demand for mid-to-high-end markets will be diversified. The quality and benefits of the varieties will be more emphasized. Changes in the steel consumption structure will force industry restructuring and restructuring. upgrade. At present, most companies have not adapted to this change in following the strategic inertia, and the entire industry has entered a period of slow transition and overhang.

-- Capital and technical constraints Structural adjustment Transformation and upgrading

The reporter learned from the investigation that the current level of equipment in China's steel industry is relatively high. Taking Hebei as an example, the average volume of blast furnaces has reached 800 cubic meters or more, and the average nominal ton of converters has reached 80 tons or more, and it is at the highest level in the country. In spite of the widespread promotion of advanced applicable technologies such as blast furnace oxygen-enriched pulverized coal injection, out-furnace refining and efficient continuous casting in the domestic iron and steel industry, some privately-owned enterprises have reached the advanced level in domestic technology, long products, plates, profiles, structural steels, and special steel state-owned enterprises. Private enterprises can produce, but some high-precision products also rely on imports, such as automotive steel 30% need to import.

Song Jijun, vice chairman of the Hebei Metallurgical Industry Association, said that state-owned steel companies represented by Baosteel, Wuhan Iron and Steel Corporation, Anshan Iron and Steel Group and Hebei Iron and Steel Group have continuously upgraded their technology, and used steel for oil and gas pipelines, offshore platform steel, high-quality household appliances, and automobiles. With steel, ultra-thin plates and other high-end products to form a comparative advantage of private enterprises, but compared with foreign famous iron and steel enterprises. A person in charge of Hebei Iron and Steel Group said frankly, “Only Baosteel in China can compete with Pohang and Nippon Steel. Our equipment level is not as low as that of ThyssenKrupp, but we cannot produce the products of others. The difference lies in the difference. We do not have accumulated technical experience for up to a hundred years and the quality of technicians and equipment management are low."

Tang Mingjiang, Director of Industry Coordination Department of the Development and Reform Commission of Tangshan City, went to the south to inspect the deep processing of steel products some time ago. He told reporters that a company that manufactures plastic processing equipment imports 300,000 yuan/ton of special steel from Germany; The gear box company could not find qualified raw material steel in the country. Finally, it could not find a steel plant from the south. The Japanese side sent five technicians to meet the technical standards.

State-owned enterprises are still the case, and the gap between private enterprises is even greater. The funds and technological bottlenecks of private steel companies have restricted the restructuring, transformation and upgrading.

Yan Mingjiang said, “Tangshan's private steel companies are seriously understaffed and there are very few graduates from the three prestigious universities in metallurgy.” Song Jijun said that there are only 9 national or provincial technology centers in Hebei Iron and Steel Enterprises. In private enterprises. Some professional and technical talents are worried about the development of private enterprises. In some key technical positions, private enterprise wages are twice or more than state-owned enterprises, and it is difficult to retain talents. Only 20 years of history, and the rapid expansion of the rapid development of China's private steel enterprises, the general lack of practical experience in technological transformation.

In addition, under the influence of the big environment, financial institutions have limited loans to steel companies. Among the 45 private enterprises, 22 have debt ratios of more than 70% and 12 have 80% or more. Private enterprises are unable to raise development funds, coupled with the company’s meager profits and more investment in environmental protection, which directly affect the transformation and upgrading. The general development of enterprises lacks sufficient stamina and the adjustment of product structure is slow.

During the investigation, some private enterprises were puzzled by structural adjustments, transformations, and upgrades due to their unclear expectations and lack of support and guidance. They were in a state of paralysis and wait-and-see. Han Zhijin, chief engineer of Tangshan Ganglu Iron & Steel Co., Ltd., said: “The benefits of high-grade steel such as stainless steel and non-oriented silicon steel are not good, unless your products are not produced by others. This is too difficult for private enterprises.” Song Jijun believes that China’s national conditions, development stage, Market demand is different from that of Western developed countries. The transformation and upgrading of the steel industry should respect the gradient and level of the industry. Private enterprises cannot go all the way to large companies, and they must go high, refined, and sharp, and ignoring actual foreign affairs regardless of actual circumstances. Whatever production should be decided by the market.

--Strengthen the upgrading of demand and vigorously develop the steel consumption industry to form a strategic reserve

Strengthen the orientation of demand upgrades, nurture new consumption growth points and high-end product markets, and expand the scale of the domestic market, which can release the pressure of excess production capacity, promote the optimization of the production capacity structure, and promote industrial transformation and upgrading. Some industry insiders believe that under the premise of energy-saving and emission-reduction, the huge capacity of the steel industry is also a huge asset of China's manufacturing industry, which can be transformed into an important strategic resource for the long-term development of the country and form a strong strategic strength.

Chen Wenling suggested that it should support the development of advanced production capacity and high-end production capacity and occupy the commanding heights of the industry and industrial chain. From the perspective of national strategic security, accelerate the planning and construction of a number of maritime smart cities and artificial island chains to form our country’s administrative presence, economic existence, and military presence in the South China Sea. The use of steel should be improved in infrastructure such as airports, docks, bridges, rails, and public buildings. This aspect can improve the level and quality of our country's infrastructure construction. At the same time, once a war occurs, we can turn our country’s large strategic reserve of steel infrastructure into a wartime resource that is urgently needed by the military. Should also speed up the era of high-speed rail to form a high-speed rail network system. These strategic actions will digest huge steel production capacity.

The industry believes that, compared with concrete buildings, steel construction, although the cost is higher, but the whole life can reach 50 years, the recovery rate reached 80%, is the unlimited recycling of green buildings, should be in schools, schools, kindergartens, stadiums In the field, we strongly promote steel construction in civil construction areas where earthquakes frequently occur. Newly built cities will focus on green buildings, low-carbon buildings and ecological buildings, and gradually increase the proportion of steel structures. “Concrete construction waste can't be degraded for 200 years. The understanding of steel structures abroad is more profound than that of us. Many Japanese highways have steel plates under them and can open tanks. Many houses in Japan are steel houses. Our country is in the process of implementing steel structures. It is urgent to strengthen planning guidance and form a new growth point for the steel industry, said Yang Xianghong, deputy general manager of Valin Steel.

Zhan Chunxin, chairman of Zoomlion, believes that there is not much difference between Beijing and New York, but there is a big gap between China's rural areas and foreign countries. In the future, China’s urbanization still has a large amount of infrastructure to build. The focus should be on rural areas. Chen Wenling said that the country’s 600,000 administrative villages have 9 billion tons of domestic sewage and 300 million tons of domestic waste to be disposed of. These infrastructure constructions can absorb large amounts of steel production capacity.

Experts suggest that vigorously develop the steel-consuming industries such as military, aviation, machinery manufacturing, home appliances, and automobiles, and extend the industrial chain of the steel industry. The reporter learned from the investigation that over the years, Hebei iron and steel enterprises have only cared for the production support of iron, steel, and materials, and the convergence between products and the market is not good. Now, Tangshan City, Hebei Province, is planning 1 to 2 large-scale, effective, and distinctive steel-consuming industrial parks in each steel-producing county. Handan City leads steel companies to surrounding standard parts, wire mesh, and seamless steel tubes. The equipment manufacturing base engages in industry matching, encourages the development of new varieties, and produces products that are marketable.

Experts also suggested that excessive capacity should be digested to strengthen the steel product quality standard management system, stricter standards for steel product use in different areas, and prevent inferior products from squeezing high-quality products. Chen Wenling believes that it is possible to further improve and standardize steel standards for the infrastructure field in the construction sector, especially related to the national economy and the people's livelihood. Mandatory third-level and higher-strength steel bars will be enforced. Design and use standards will be gradually increased in fields such as construction machinery and equipment manufacturing. Song Jijun said that there are 100 million tons of steelmaking in the country every year. Shortening the oxygen blowing time will increase production. If the quality standards are strengthened, the oxygen will be forced to increase for 4 minutes and the compressible capacity will be 10 million tons.