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Shanghai-listed Xining Special Steel, a carbon and specialty steelmaker located in Xining city, Northwest China’s Qinghai province, has received a warning from United Credit Ratings (United Ratings) about the rating presently assigned the steelmaker’s corporate bonds in view of the huge losses Xining generated last year.
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The Indian steel community is divided about the likelihood of the country achieving 300 million tonnes/year of installed steelmaking capacity by 2030-2031, despite the government’s emphasis on the feasibility of the target based on various market research and studies, according to Indian speakers at SteelMint’s 3rd Indian Iron Ore & Pellet Summit on February 18-19 in New Delhi.
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India’s crude steel production increased by 4.9% on year to 106.5 million tonnes in 2018, surpassing Japan’s output last year and catapulting the South Asian country to the rank of the world’s second largest steel producer after China for the first time, according to the latest statistics of the World Steel Association (WSA).
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Capacity utilization among members of China’s ferrous smelting and processing industry last year increased by 2.2 percentage points to an average of 78%, with growth in the rate for the sector being the third-fastest for any industry, according to the latest data released by China’s National Bureau of Statistics. The rate for the sector in December improved 0.7 percentage point year on year to 77.7%, the numbers show.
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Hebei Jinxi Iron & Steel Group (Jinxi), China’s leading section steel producer with steelworks in Tangshan in North China’s Hebei province, has decided to purchase 600,000 tonnes/year of capacity ‘quotas’ from a local government-backed capacity trading platform named Tangshan energy consumption and capacity trading center (TECCTC) in preparation for modernizing its facilities.
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Fifteen integrated steelmakers in East China’s Shandong province are having to pay an extra Yuan 0.1/kWh ($0.015/kWh) including 16% VAT for the electricity they buy from China’s State Grid to power their operations starting January 1, as ordered by the Shandong Development and Reform Commission. But mills contacted by Mysteel were largely indifferent to the rise.
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China’s major integrated mills all enjoyed better margins making the three major carbon-steel products last month, according to Mysteel’s latest monthly profits study of 91 blast furnace mills during the period spanning November 26 through December 25.
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CITIC Ltd, China’s top specialty steel producer, will consolidate and list all its core specialty steel asset via its Shenzhen-listed Daye Special Steel Co by transferring its 12 million tonnes/year Xingcheng Special Steel to Daye, according to the releases from both CITIC and Daye on January 2 and January 3 respectively.
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Yunnan Yuxi Yukun Iron & Steel Group Co in Yuxi city in Southwest China’s Yunnan province, plans to build a ‘greenfield’ steelworks with 5.15 million tonnes/year of crude steel capacity in Eshan Yi Autonomous County, also in Yuxi city, a senior company official has confirmed.
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Tangshan Guofeng Iron & Steel Co, an 8.8 million tonnes/year steel producer in Tangshan city’s Fengnan district in North China’s Hebei province, will shut down all facilities at its No.2 steelworks by the end of this month, a company official told Mysteel on Thursday. The shutdown will mean the company’s entire operations will be permanently closed.
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The growth in the profits among China’s iron and steelmaking and extrusion enterprises slowed further over January-November, down substantially 13.5 percentage points from the first ten months to 50.2% year on year, but it was still the second most profitable industry following oil and gas sector, according to the latest data released by the country’s National Bureau of Statistics on December 27.
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Japan’s Kobe Steel, the majority shareholder in Kobe Special Steel Wire Products (Pinghu), has announced a major expansion of the venture to lift throughput to 5,500 tonnes/month from spring 2020.
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The most-traded May rebar contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange closed higher for the third day as of December 21, up Yuan 53/tonne ($7.7/t) from Thursday’s closing price amid the better market sentiment in the short term with the frequent curbing efforts of late by the Tangshan government in North China’s Hebei province on its local steel industry, market sources said.
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China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology late Monday said it intends to remove the names of eleven makers of stainless and carbon steel from its list of qualified domestic producers for 2018, nearly half the number of enterprises disqualified by the ministry for 2017 – a reduction which buoyed Chinese steel industry observers.
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China’s domestic steel prices for 2019 will be relying on the demand for support instead of the supply-side trimming as the latter has come to the end and its impact on prices, thus, will wane off, according to the panelists at the Mysteel Annual Seminar on December 16 in Shanghai.
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China’s steel industry has removed steel capacity equivalent to nearly 150 million tonnes/year since 2016, basically fulfilling the capacity reduction target the central government had set the industry, according to Chi Jingdong, deputy secretary general of China Iron and Steel Association.
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Between January and end-September, East China’s Shandong province had eliminated some 3.55 million tonnes/year of steelmaking capacity and 600,000 t/y of ironmaking capacity, the Shandong provincial government’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) announced on November 26.
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Gross profits in China’s ferrous industry including ironmakers, steelmakers and fabricators, surged 63.7% on year over January-October, the highest among all the major industries other than oil and gas exploration, but it was down further by 7.4 percentage points from that over January-September, Mysteel notes.
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Steel mills in North China has lost the appetite to ship their extra rebar supplies to East China as price gap between the two regions are closing up with domestic steel price declines since early November, market sources shared on November 23.
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The city government of North China’s Tangshan has issued another emergency alert curtailing the sintering operations of local steelmakers during November 22-27 out of concerns for a spike in air pollution during the five days. But local producers have just shrugged.
