[SMM Steel]

Iron ore concentrate prices in west Liaoning edged up slightly, with 66% grade iron ore concentrates at a dry basis delivered price, tax included, of 700-710 yuan/mt. Currently, ore dressing operations remain largely suspended due to ongoing safety inspections, keeping overall iron ore concentrate supply relatively tight,

Recently, the cold-rolled automotive sheet production at Pangang Xichang Steel Vanadium Sheets & Plates Plant achieved a key breakthrough, with automotive sheet yield improving 0.26% YoY, and product quality reaching its best level since commissioning. Automotive sheets are the plant's flagship product for profit growth. As capacity has expanded significantly, the high-volume, high-throughput production conditions have posed greater challenges to end-to-end process, equipment, operations, and quality control. To address losses from inclusions, downgrades, and cutting scrap during production, the plant focused on the entire production chain—steelmaking, hot rolling, pickling and cold rolling, and continuous annealing—carrying out defect tracing, tiered control, and closed-loop rectification. At the same time, it refined special assessments on yield for each process step, continuously optimized core processes such as rolling, annealing, and shape control, strictly implemented end-to-end management from slab charging to finished product warehousing, and resolved production bottlenecks one by one. This indicator breakthrough is the result of coordinated efforts across production, technical, equipment, and quality positions. Frontline technical personnel continuously optimized process plans, operators strictly followed standardized operations, and quality personnel improved ledger management and closed-loop handling of quality issues, comprehensively and rigorously controlling product losses. Going forward, the plant will continue to consolidate the results of this campaign, tap deeper into indicator improvement potential, precisely rectify end-to-end production losses, and further optimize automotive sheet products to achieve dual improvements in capacity scale and product quality, burnish the Pangang automotive sheet brand, and help the enterprise improve quality and efficiency.