This article summarizes the world steel production by country.
In 2017, total world crude steel production was 1,691.2 million tonnes (Mt). The biggest steel producing country is currently China, which accounted for 49.2% of world steel production in 2017.[1] In 2008, 2009, 2015 and 2016 output fell in the majority of steel-producing countries as a result of the global recession. In 2010 and 2017, it started to rise again.
List of countries by steel production[edit]
This is a list of countries by steel production in 1967, 1980, 1990, 2000 and from 2007 to 2018, based on data provided by the World Steel Association.[2][3][4][5][6][7] All countries with annual production of crude steel at least 2 million metric tons are listed.
Exports[edit]
net: exports - imports
Imports[edit]
net: imports - exports
See also[edit]References[edit]
External links[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_countries_by_steel_production&oldid=891043406'
Another month, another record for Chinese steel manufacturers.
Despite complaints from competitors around the world, China's steelmakers set an all-time high for output in April, breaking their previous monthly record in March.
Normally, a one-percent month-to-month increase might hardly be noticed. But China's crude steel production of 72.78 million metric tons comes at a time when the government claims to be making steep cuts in production capacity.
The problem of China's booming steel production is symptomatic of the government's priority for growth over reform, cited by Moody's Investors Service in its decision to downgrade the country's sovereign debt last week.
'The importance the authorities attach to maintaining robust growth will result in sustained policy stimulus, given the growing structural impediments to achieving current growth targets,' Moody's said in a statement on May 24.
'Such stimulus will contribute to rising debt across the country as a whole,' it said.
The conflicts over steel have been prime examples of China's pursuit of high economic growth rates, leading the government to argue that it is reducing production capacity while steel mills are increasing production at the same time.
On May 11, the official English-language China Daily reported that the steel and iron industries had reduced excess production capacity by 31.7 million tons so far this year.
The cuts announced after a meeting of the cabinet-level State Council were hailed as an achievement, fulfilling nearly two-thirds of the government's goal to slash surplus capacity by 50 million tons in 2017.
'China is taking the initiative to reduce production capacity based on its own national conditions. The efforts are to make the growth model and economic structure move to new economic drivers,' said Premier Li Keqiang, as reported by state media.
That would be good news for foreign steelmakers who have complained for years about the glut of Chinese steel on the market. It would also be welcomed by citizens who have struggled under clouds of smog from coal-fired steel plants.
Record suggests otherwise
But the record output suggests that the capacity cuts have little or nothing to do with how much steel China is producing.
In 2016, China's crude steel output of 808.4 million tons accounted for 50.4 percent of global production, according to World Steel Association data.
Last year's production edged up 0.5 percent in a year when the government said it had lowered capacity by 65 million tons.
So far this year, China's production has climbed 4.6 percent from a year earlier despite the capacity cuts, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) reported.
The increases are possible, in part, because China's excess capacity vastly exceeds its reduction goals.
Before the government ordered the industry to start cutting in early 2016, China's crude steel capacity stood at 1.13 billion tons, according to a Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) official quoted by Reuters at the time.
But China produced only 803.8 million tons in 2015, leaving it with a huge surplus capacity of more than 326 million tons and a capacity utilization rate of 71 percent.
The excess was more than four times the volume of U.S. crude steel production last year.
The problem was actually worse because China's domestic steel demand was likely to remain at 630 million to 700 million tons during the next five years, the MIIT official said. The remaining production would be exported at low prices, triggering antidumping measures and trade complaints abroad.
In April, President Donald Trump ordered an investigation into whether steel imports are harming U.S. national security.
Last week, China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) rejected claims that the country is responsible for 'global steel overcapacity, saying its exports have little impact on the U.S. steel industry,' the official Xinhua news agency reported.
Instead, the MOC argued that shrinking demand is the 'root cause' of overcapacity around the world. The country's overwhelming share of the world market may make that argument a tough sell.
In February 2016, the State Council announced plans to cut capacity by 100 million to 150 million tons 'over the next five years,' Xinhua reported. Sims 4 multiple relationships mod list.
As the year progressed and foreign pressure increased, the government pushed industry to move faster on cuts. As a result, officials claimed that China over-fulfilled its 2016 goal of decreasing capacity by 45 million tons, phasing out 65 million tons last year.
The added reductions claimed so far this year would raise the total of capacity cuts to nearly 100 million tons.
But that would still be less than 30 percent of the surplus cited in 2016, leaving plenty of slack for steelmakers to boost production in response to higher prices from the government's stimulus spending, infrastructure investment and the real estate boom last year.
A Chinese worker packs steel rolls in a steel factory in Tangshan, northern China's Hebei province, May 12, 2016. Credit: AFP
Study casts doubts
A study released by the environmental group Greenpeace East Asia in December casts doubt on whether China's steel industry even cut as much capacity as targeted in the original 2016 goal.
The study compiled by industry consultants Custeel E- Commerce Co. found that the totals included capacity that was already idled. Fifty-four million tons of production was restarted to take advantage of higher prices, while 12 million tons of new capacity was added, it said.
If the findings are correct, China raised capacity by 36.5 million tons last year instead of reducing it. An increase of that size would also offset all of the cuts that have been claimed for this year.
As a result, China's capacity surplus may still be as large as it was before the government's downsizing initiative started.
China Crude Steel Production Spatial Formula
Last year, China's Foreign Ministry also claimed that the country had reduced capacity by 90 million tons during the previous five years, but according to figures from the China Iron and Steel Association and MIIT, capacity climbed by more than 70 percent since 2008.
Derek Scissors, an Asia economist and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, said that China's claims of capacity cuts have come from the government rather than producers.
'There are a number of ways firms and provinces can claim to be reducing capacity, for example, counting idle or planned capacity, without doing so,' said Scissors.
'The production numbers show capacity is not being cut. Claims that it is are just government propaganda,' he said.
Government accounting problems
Recent official and state media reports have acknowledged problems with the government accounting.
Participants at last month's State Council meeting 'decided to eliminate illegal production that adds to overcapacity and prevent production occurring after shutdowns from flaring up again,' China Daily reported.
Xinhua said in May that some firms could be 'bowing to government pressure (and) could just halt production temporarily to meet their assigned tasks, instead of seriously eliminating capacity.'
In March, another statement by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the government's top planning agency, said that 'steel overcapacity has not been reversed fundamentally and the recent price rally could result in vulnerabilities,' according to Xinhua.
The NDRC cited the impact on jobs and finances as reasons for more gradual capacity reductions.
'Given the obstacles, such as unemployment and debts, the drive cannot be completed in one fail (sic) swoop—it requires resilience, composure, and innovation,' said the agency, as quoted by Xinhua.
Last year, the government predicted that 1.8 million jobs would be lost due to capacity closures in the steel and coal industries.
The government says it paid out 30 billion yuan (U.S. $4.4 billion) to support 726,000 laid off workers in the two industries last year and plans assistance for 500,000 more in 2017.
While the government has repeatedly argued that current steel production and capacity levels are unsustainable, it has promoted major investment initiatives that may make steelmakers resistant to downsizing in the long term.
China's ambitious 'Belt and Road' trade infrastructure program and the Xiongan New Area project to develop a new city center in Hebei province south of Beijing are both seen as opportunities to utilize more steel.
Last month, China Daily reported that the Xiongan development is expected to spark a 'building materials boom.'
In a May 18 editorial, The New York Times also cited the capacity issue as one of China's motives for pursuing the Belt and Road strategy.
'China itself is eager to open new markets to nourish its own growth and to absorb an overproduction of steel, cement, and machinery,' it said.
The steel industry in China has been driven by rapid modernisation of its economy, construction, infrastructure and manufacturing industries.[1]
History[edit]20th century[edit]
The steel industry was small and sparsely populated at the start of the twentieth century and during both world wars. Most of the steel infrastructure was destroyed during the wars, and were using Soviet technologies. China lagged behind the western countries in its steel industry development even though they were using central planning techniques during the early days of communist rule.[2]
Tomb raider definitive edition ps4 multiplayer. China underwent rapid economic industrialisation since Deng Xiaoping's capitalist reforms which took place four decades ago in 1978.[3]
The steel industry gradually increased its output. China's annual crude steel output was 100 million tons in 1996.[4]
21st century[edit]
China produced 123 million tonnes (121,000,000 long tons; 136,000,000 short tons) of steel in 1999. After its ascension to the WTO it aggressively expanded its production for its growing appetite of manufacturing industries such as automotive vehicles, consumer electronics and building materials.[3]
The Chinese steel industry is dominated by a number of large state-owned groups which are owned via shareholdings by local authorities, provincial governments and even the central authorities. According to China Iron and Steel Association, The top 5 steel groups by production volume in 2015 are Baosteel Group–Wuhan Iron and Steel Corporation, Hesteel Group, Shagang Group, Ansteel Group and Shougang Group.[5]
By 2008 raw materials such as Iron ore prices grew and China had to reluctantly agree to price increases by the three largest iron ore producers in the world; BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Vale.[3] During the Global financial crisis the Chinese steel mills won price reprieves as demand from their customers slowed. When the demand started to pick up again in 2009 and in 2010, the price crept back up due to higher demand for automobiles, low interest rates, government fiscal stimuli around the world.[6] Prices for iron ore were negotiated on an annual contract pricing scheme.[7][8][9][10] Australian iron ore producers were not happy that iron prices did not reflect Spot market pricing. In 2010 pressure from BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto to move to a quarterly based index pricing succeeded.[11] Many Japanese steel mills and Chinese steel companies had to follow as demand for raw materials heated up.[11][12][13] Spot-basis pricing has caused problems for steel manufacturers such as exposing them to price fluctuation in the market and reducing the stability of resource supply. Steel mills prefer long term pricing to hedge against cost and maintain raw material supply stability.[14] Rio Tinto has said it will cancel contracts and sell the steel on the spot markets if Chinese steel mills back down on the new quarterly pricing regime.[14]
In 2011 China was the largest producer of steel in the world producing 45% of the world's steel, 683 million tons, an increase of 9% from 2010. 6 of 10 of largest steel producers in the world are in China. Profits are low despite continued high demand due to high debt and overproduction of high end products produced with the equipment financed by the high debt. The central government is aware of this problem but there is no easy way to resolve it as local governments strongly support local steel production. Meanwhile, each firm aggressively increases production.[15]Iron ore production kept pace with steel production in the early 1990s but was soon outpaced by imported iron ore and other metals in the early 2000s. Steel production, an estimated 140 million tons in 2000 increased to 419 million tons in 2006. Much of the country's steel output comes from a large number of small-scale producing centers, one of the largest being Anshan in Liaoning.
China was the top exporter of steel in the world in 2008. Export volumes in 2008 were 59.23 million tons, a 5.5% fall over the previous year.[16] The decline ended China's decade-old steel export growth. As of 2012 steel exports faced widespread anti-dumping taxes and had not returned to pre-2008 levels. Domestic demand remained strong, particularly in the developing west where steel production in Xinjiang was expanding.[15]
On 26 April 2012 a warning was issued by China's bank regulator to use caution with respect to lending money to steel companies who, as profits from the manufacture and sale of steel have fallen, have sometimes used borrowed money for speculative purposes. According to the China Iron and Steel Association the Chinese steel industry lost 1 billion Rmb in the first quarter of 2012, its first loss since 2000.[17]
As of 2015 the global steel market was weak with both Ukraine and Russia attempting to export large amounts of steel.[18] Weak domestic demand in 2014 resulted in record exports of 100 million metric tons of steel by the Chinese steel industry.[19]
Efforts by the Chinese Ministry of Environmental Protection under the Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Air Pollution has resulted in pressure on steel mills in Linyi and Chengde to employ environmental protection measures on pain of being closed down.[20]
In the context of lowered demand (see also 2015–16 Chinese stock market crash), in 2016 the Chinese state announced large scale closures and redundancies in heavy and primary industries, many of which were functioning as zombie companies, with 1.8 million redundancies (15% of workforce) in the coal and steel industries planned to take place by 2020.[21]
See also[edit]References[edit]
External links[edit]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Steel_industry_in_China&oldid=887562688'
Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |