Steel News Roundup (Jan 4)

SHANGHAI, Jan 4 (SMM) - This is a roundup of news in the steel industry for last week.

Luo Tiejun, Vice Chairman of China Iron and Steel Association: It is recommended to study the value-added tax preferential policies for imported raw materials of secondary steel

Luo Tiejun, vice chairman of the China Iron and Steel Association, attended the 2021 National Steel Scrap Conference and the Second Council Enlarged Meeting of the Seventh China Steel Scrap Application Association held in Nanning, Guangxi on December 28, and delivered a speech. With regard to promoting the further cultivation and healthy development of the steel scrap and EAF steel industries, Luo Tiejun put forward two suggestions: one is to solve the problem of scrap taxation as soon as possible, and form an optimal industry chain. It is also important to study the value-added tax preferential policy for imported raw materials for secondary steel. The second is to guide the transformation of BF steel to EAF steel, and create a friendly environment for the development of EAF steel; at the same time, it is necessary to correctly evaluate the output of steel scrap in China and develop EAF steel in an appropriate and orderly manner.

MIIT: By 2025, the production capacity of key commodity raw materials such as crude steel and cement will definite decrease.

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other departments issued the "14th Five-Year Plan" for the development of the raw material industry. The development goals include: by 2025, the production capacity of key commodity raw material such as crude steel and cement will definitely decrease, and the capacity utilisation rate will remain at a reasonable level. The comprehensive energy consumption per ton of steel in the iron and steel industry will drop by 2%, the energy consumption per unit of clinker of cement will decline by 3.7%, and the carbon emissions of aluminium will be reduced by 5%. It will study and establish a management mechanism regarding carbon emissions, pollutant emissions, and total energy consumption to curb the expansion of excess capacity. It will normalise the staggered production of cement, and explore the establishment of staggered production mechanisms for other industries such as iron and steel. It will implement energy-saving reviews and strictly control the fuel coal consumption of major coal-consuming industries such as petrochemical, chemical, steel, and building materials.

State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission: State-owned enterprises must strictly control energy and pollution-intensive projects and resolutely eliminate relative projects that do not meet the requirements of relevant policies

The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission issued the Guiding Opinions on Promoting the High-Quality Development of State-owned Enterprises and Doing a Good Job in Carbon Peak and Carbon Neutrality. The notice proposed that state-owned enterprises should strictly control energy and pollutionintensive projects, optimise the production capacity and deployment of such projects, and implement ledger management, dynamic monitoring, and classified disposal. It will promote the proposed projects scientifically and steadily, replace the capacity of energy and pollution-intensive projects such as steel, cement, flat glass, aluminium, etc., and strictly implement production control policies for coal power, petrochemical, and coal chemical industries. It will resolutely eliminate relative projects that do not meet the requirements of relevant policies.

Hebei Province was required to reduce the crude steel output by 21.71 million mt in 2021

In 2021, Hebei Province was required to reduce the crude steel output by 21.71 million mt, accounting for 72.4% of the country’s total reduction. In order to release this target, it has been key to strengthen targeted policy adjustment as well as supply-demand docking to reduce costs, guide steel companies to tap the potential domestic demand, optimise product portfolio, improve the quality, and vigorously develop high-quality steel. From January to November 2021, the output of high value-added products such as hot-rolled coil, cold-rolled coil, and cold-rolled thin and wide steel strip in Hebei Province increased by 109.2%, 40.8%, and 40.2% year-on-year, respectively, driving the added value of the province’s ferrous metal rolling industry down by only 0.6 %, a powerful and effective hedge against the policy of crude steel production reduction.