Growth tends to stagnate The steel industry needs to make adjustments

According to foreign media reports, global supply and demand for steel has reached a level of 1.5 billion to 1.6 billion tons per year, and growth will tend to stagnate. It is also said that the rapid expansion of China's steel consumption and output is beginning to slow down. On July 10, the experts interviewed by the author agreed with this statement, saying that "the steel industry needs to make adjustments."

According to the Financial Times of the UK on the 9th, some companies have begun to take action due to the situation. For example, ThyssenKrupp, a German company, is looking for buyers for two large expensive steel plants in the United States and Brazil. ArcelorMittal refuses to rule out the possibility of further shutdowns at the European plant; other steel companies such as Japan Ferrous Metals (JFE) and Austria's Voestalpine prefer to increase the development of new steel materials to increase Competitiveness, etc.

The report pointed out that the reason that led people to change the situation in the steel industry is that there are signs that the rapid expansion of China's steel consumption and output is beginning to slow down. The British steel consulting company Meps predicts that China's steel output will increase by 5.7% this year, which is basically the same as last year, indicating that the growth of Chinese steel demand has slowed down significantly.

Zhou Xizeng, chief analyst of CITIC Securities's steel industry, told the writer on the 10th that Chinese steel has dropped from double-digit growth to single digits, and the current growth is indeed slow. He believes that there is a need for adjustments in the steel industry. “After changes in downstream demand, adjustments should be made to increase the growth of the industry (for undertaking) expansion. The shrinking industry must be eliminated or structural adjustments, such as product structure and enterprise structure, should be carried out abroad. Joint mergers and acquisitions or restructuring adjustments. From the technical side, technical updates will be carried out to reduce costs and develop better products."

Zhou Xizeng stated that China's steel demand and output are “not far from the peak.” At the same time, for iron and steel companies, it is currently not certain that the company will be profitable in the future because it depends on whether the company will have new investment in the future. And the company is not static... The steel industry will change."