Steel News Roundup

SHANGHAI, Aug 30 (SMM) - This is a roundup of news in the steel industry for last week.

The unblocking of Taijiao Railway will provide nearly 10 million mt of coal transportation capacity every month

After being blocked by 36 days due to the devastating flood in Henan, the Taijiao Railway within the jurisdiction of the Zhengzhou Railway Bureau has fully returned to normal. The officers from the Electric Power Department of the National Energy Administration said that the unblocking of Taijiao Railway will provide nearly 10 million mt of coal transportation capacity every month.

NDRC: to strengthen monitoring of and conduct investigations into agencies and social media accounts that maliciously speculate on rising coal prices in accordance with laws and regulations

According to the website of the National Development and Reform Commission, in response to the recent release of information on coal price hike by the Yulin Coal Trading Center, a special group in charge in Yulin City, Shaanxi Province has decided to conduct a special investigation across the city to verify the content of relevant official accounts in accordance with relevant regulations, with the purpose to ensure the stable operation of the market. The group is expected to investigate and interview key persons in charge of the agency and deal with it in accordance with relevant regulations. As the summer peak draws to an end, the tight coal supply and demand situation in the country has improved significantly. Some agencies and social media accounts are still maliciously speculating about the coal price hike, and some coal mines are still blindly raising prices, seriously interfering the work of maintaining coal supply and stabilising prices. The National Development and Reform Commission will strengthen monitoring with relevant parties, and investigate and deal with illegal acts such as malicious speculation on price hike in accordance with laws and regulations.

Global supply chain problems were getting worse amid shortage of components and soaring freights

Factory production across Asia has been subverted and maritime transport has been disrupted amid raging delta variant, which kept impacting the world economy. What should have been a temporary disrupt to supply chain is likely to continue until next year. Manufacturers suffering from shortages of key components, rising raw material and energy costs have been forced to start a battle for ship vacancies, which has pushed freights to record highs and prompted some exporters to raise prices or simply cancel shipment. Christopher Tse, CEO of Musical Group headquartered in Hong Kong, said, “We cannot get enough components or containers, and the cost has been pushed up greatly.”

Many cities' second batch of centralised land transfer postponed

The Jinan Public Resource Exchange Center and the Jinan Municipal Bureau of Natural Resources and Planning also jointly issued an announcement stating that the announcement of the second batch of 40 plots of centralized transfer in the city has been extended to August 30. At the same time, the start time of offer has been adjusted to August 30, and the deadline was adjusted to September 10.

Hangzhou Municipal Planning and Natural Resources Bureau of Zhejiang Province issued an announcement that the offer of the second batch of concentrated residential plots transfer was terminated, with a total of 31 cases. Announcement will be renewed before August 31.

The time for the second batch of centralized land transfer in Shenyang has been postponed to September 6. According to the announcement, the residential land transferred this time will adopt the model of “bidding for higher and better construction quality under land price restriction” for lands with price restrictions, and the source of funds paid by bidders will be proprietary funds. At the same time, free agent construction will all be cancelled this time.

The industry concentration rate of the top 10 steel companies shall reach 60% by 2025

According to the Guiding Opinions on Promoting the High-quality Development of Iron and Steel Industry (Draft for Comments) stated that by 2025, more than 60% of the output will be concentrated to about 10 large manufacturing entities, including 3-4 ultra-large steel companies with a capacity of 80 million mt, and 6-8 super-large steel companies with a capacity of 40 million mt. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, all steel enterprises will continue to upgrade and cut output.