China Iron and Steel Association: The efficiency of the steel industry has rebounded month by month, and the level of greening and intelligence has been further improved
On October 24, the China Iron and Steel Association held an information conference for the third quarter of 2023. In the first three quarters, the downward shift in the cost center of gravity of steel companies was smaller than the decline in steel prices, and the overall profit of the industry fell year-on-year. However, the industry's efficiency has rebounded month by month, and the asset-liability ratio has basically remained flat year-on-year.
Profit in the first three quarters fell year-on-year
From the perspective of benefit data, in the first three quarters, the total profit of member enterprises in the key statistics of China Steel Association fell by 34.1% year-on-year, and the average profit margin was only 1.33%, ranking low in 41 industrial categories. However, the industry's efficiency has rebounded month by month, and the asset-liability ratio has basically remained flat year-on-year.
From the overall situation of supply and demand, in the first three quarters, steel supply was stronger than demand, steel variety structure with the adjustment of the national industrial structure and optimization, steel production increased by 1.7% year-on-year, steel exports increased by 32% year-on-year, equivalent to crude steel apparent consumption fell by 1.5% year-on-year. The growth of steel exports and the rise in domestic manufacturing steel demand have become the main driving forces supporting the growth of steel production; The contraction in demand for steel in the construction industry has become the main factor in the reduction in consumption. Although the import mine price has decreased year-on-year, but affected by the appreciation of the US dollar, the actual downward shift in the cost center of steel enterprises is smaller than the decline in steel prices, and the overall profit of the industry has decreased year-on-year.
According to the statistics of the China Iron and Steel Association, in the first three quarters, the operating income of key steel enterprises was 4.66 trillion yuan, down 1.74% year-on-year; Operating costs were 4.39 trillion yuan, down 0.61% year-on-year, revenue decreased by 1.13 percentage points greater than cost; total profit reached 62.1 billion yuan, down 34.11% year-on-year; The sales margin was 1.33%, down 0.66 percentage points year-on-year. From the monthly data, the profits of key enterprises have increased month by month since June. At the end of September, the asset-liability ratio of key statistical enterprises was 62.65%, an increase of 0.56 percentage points year-on-year.
Steel production increased slightly, and steel consumption declined slightly. According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, in the first three quarters, China's crude steel output was 795 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 1.7%; pig iron production was 675 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 2.8%; Steel output was 1.029 billion tons, a year-on-year increase of 6.1%. In the first three quarters, the apparent consumption of crude steel was 731 million tons, down 1.5% year-on-year. At the end of September, the steel inventory of key statistical enterprises was 15.25 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 630,000 tons; The social inventory of 5 major varieties of steel in 21 cities increased by 440,000 tons year-on-year.
Steel exports increased year-on-year, and imports fell sharply year-on-year. According to data released by the General Administration of Customs, in the first three quarters, the country exported a total of 66.818 million tons of steel, a year-on-year increase of 31.8%; The cumulative import of steel was 5.698 million tons, down 31.7% year-on-year.
Steel prices fell year-on-year, and imported mine prices fell less. According to the monitoring of the China Steel Association, in the first three quarters, the average value of CSPI China Steel Price Index was 111.91 points, down 11.67% year-on-year; The procurement costs of key steel enterprises imported fine ore, coking coal, metallurgical coke, injection coal and scrap decreased by 1.36%, 20.24%, 24.7%, 17.24% and 17.04% respectively year-on-year.
The level of environmental protection continues to improve
据中钢协统计，前三季度，会员钢铁企业外排废水总量同比下降9.34%，化学需氧量排放量同比下降18.59%，氨氮排放量同比下降21.63%，二氧化硫排放量同比下降14.92%，颗粒物排放量同比下降14.88%，吨钢可比能耗同比下降0.90%，吨钢耗新水量同比下降2.0%。节能减排稳步推进，The level of environmental protection continues to improve。
Jiang Wei, deputy secretary of the party committee, vice president and secretary general of China Iron and Steel Association, said at the press conference that the research on the expansion of the carbon market in seven major industries, including steel, petrochemical, chemical, nonferrous metals, building materials, civil aviation and papermaking, has provided key technical support for the expansion of the national carbon market. The China Iron and Steel Association participated in the carbon market research of the steel industry, mainly focusing on key issues such as carbon emission accounting boundaries, quota allocation, accounting reports, verification technologies, etc., and also focused on industry assessment, summary of international and domestic pilot experience, evaluation of data base, quota allocation scheme, and accounting scheme guide.
In terms of high-end, since the beginning of this year, the demand for high-end steel has continued to increase, and the number of steel varieties used in manufacturing industries such as ships, automobiles, and home appliances and emerging industries such as wind power and photovoltaics has continued to grow. In the first three quarters, the output of electrical steel plate (strip) increased by 14.3% year-on-year, hot-rolled sheet increased by 18.2% year-on-year, and cold-rolled narrow steel strip increased by 15.7% year-on-year. From the perspective of export varieties, the growth of hot-rolled coil and medium and thick plate is obvious, the export of coated plate maintains steady growth, and the proportion of high value-added products exported has increased significantly.
In terms of greening, as of the end of September, a total of 96 steel enterprises (including one pelletizing enterprise) have completed ultra-low emission transformation and assessment monitoring, involving about 453 million tons of crude steel production capacity, and 36 enterprises are under review, involving about 82 million tons of crude steel production capacity. 58 enterprises with a production capacity of 440 million tons are actively promoting the implementation of extreme energy efficiency projects as extreme energy efficiency cultivators.
In terms of intelligence, at present, the application density of robots in the steel industry has reached 54 sets (sets) / 10,000 people, 90% of steel enterprises have established manufacturing execution and energy control systems, and enterprises with a scale of more than 5 million tons have basically established a control connection system. Steel enterprises actively promote the deep integration of digitalization and intelligence and other new-generation information and communication technologies with the whole process of steel manufacturing, and form a platform management and control architecture that includes intelligent production, quality control, equipment operation and maintenance, unmanned storage area, and multi-business integration of safety and environmental fire protection, which has achieved improved production efficiency, improved energy efficiency, improved quality stability, and reduced employee labor intensity.
Demand is expected to recover gradually
Looking forward to the later period, the China Steel Association believes that the long-term good fundamentals of China's economy will continue, and it is expected that steel demand is expected to gradually recover. Among them, with the acceleration of manufacturing production activities, the demand of automobiles, home appliances, and shipbuilding industries is better, and the amount of steel used may rise steadily; With the rapid development of new energy industries such as wind power and nuclear power, the demand for steel will grow; Infrastructure will continue to play a supporting role and is the main lever to drive steel demand; It is difficult to effectively release the pulling effect of real estate on steel demand. On the supply side, the implementation of output control policies superimposed on energy consumption, environmental protection control and other policy supervision, it is expected that steel production will decline in the fourth quarter of this year, and the pattern of strong market supply and weak demand may improve in stages.
China Iron and Steel Association said that at present, steel enterprises generally reflect that they hope that the state will strictly implement relevant policies such as capacity replacement, output regulation, and carbon emission "dual control", study and introduce fiscal and taxation policies and measures such as expanding and encouraging the export of high-end steel products, promoting the development of domestic iron ore resources and recycling of scrap steel resources, encouraging and supporting the research and development and application of low-carbon and environmentally friendly metallurgical technologies, building a fair and reasonable policy environment conducive to promoting the healthy development of the steel industry, strengthening the construction of EPD platforms in the steel industry, and accelerating the promotion of international mutual recognition and industry mutual recognition. The association will continue to play a good role as a bridge, timely transform the demands of member enterprises into opinions and suggestions and reflect them to relevant departments, and promote problem solving.
In addition, the steel industry will continue to do a good job in researching and promoting new mechanisms for capacity governance, optimizing and improving the policy orientation of joint restructuring, fully implementing the three major transformation projects of "capacity replacement", "ultra-low emissions" and "extreme energy efficiency", continuing to promote the implementation of the "cornerstone plan" for the purpose of ensuring the security of iron resource supply and the "steel application expansion plan" for the purpose of expanding the application space of steel materials, focusing on the two themes of green and low-carbon development and intelligent manufacturing, and accelerating technological innovation and application promotion such as low-carbon metallurgy. Promote the digital, networked and intelligent transformation and upgrading of steel enterprises, ensure the stable and efficient operation of the industry, and accelerate high-quality development.
