The steel industry is steadily moving towards the medium-high end

More autonomous and controllable ability. Among the 22 categories of steel products, the self-sufficiency rate of 19 categories reached 100%, and the other 3 categories exceeded 98.8%, ensuring the implementation of major projects.

Toughness has been improved

Promote supply-side structural reform to make the steel industry better structured, more efficient and more stable

This is a hard-won report card - in 2021, the operating income of CISA member enterprises reached 6,930.8 billion yuan, an increase of 32.7% year-on-year, the highest in history; The total profit reached a record 352.4 billion yuan, up 59.7% year-on-year.

"In the first half of last year, the price and supply of iron ore and coke fluctuated, and in the second half of the year, domestic steel demand fell sharply. To have survived the 'stress tests' in two different situations shows the sheer resilience of the steel industry." He Wenbo said.

It can not only support economic operation with sufficient production capacity, but also flexibly respond to market changes, and the improvement of the toughness of the steel industry is benefited from the continuous advancement of supply-side structural reform.

-- Resolve excess capacity, promote mergers and restructuring, and improve the structure of the steel industry.

Speaking of the changes of the company in the past 10 years, Xing Qunli, the manager of the financial department of Masteel Group, is familiar with: in 2012 and 2015, the whole industry suffered losses twice, and Masteel also experienced operational difficulties; Since February 2016, the state has vigorously promoted the reduction of production capacity, and the steel industry has ushered in a turning point, and Masteel has turned losses into profits that year; In September 2019, under the general trend of industry merger and reorganization, Masteel was merged into Baowu Group and actively integrated into professional integration; In 2021, Masteel's operating income exceeded 200 billion yuan and profit exceeded 10 billion yuan for the first time.

To reduce production capacity, so that once fell into the loss of the steel industry ushered in a turnaround. During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, China's cumulative reduction of crude steel production capacity of more than 170 million tons, the clearing of more than 140 million tons of "strip steel", "zombie enterprises" and backward production capacity should be withdrawn, the market environment is effectively improved, and the advantage of production capacity is fully played.

While the capacity utilization rate has recovered to a reasonable level, the industrial concentration rate has also continued to increase due to the acceleration of enterprise mergers and acquisitions: in December 2016, the former Baosteel and Wisco jointly restructured into China Baowu, and then successively restructured Masteel and Taigang, with steel output exceeding 100 million tons in 2020, becoming the world's largest steel enterprise; In October 2021, Angang restructured Bensteel and became the second largest steel enterprise in China and the third largest in the world. By November last year, the steel output of the top 10 enterprises in the industry accounted for 40.4% of the country, an increase of 6.2 percentage points over 2015.

-- Promoting the integration of the two, intelligent manufacturing, and making the steel industry more efficient.

Came to the high quality alloy steel bar workshop of Masteel Special Steel Company, I saw the orderly operation of the production equipment such as heating furnace, roughing mill and middle mill, the welding robot and the sampling robot brandishing freely, and batches of car bearings and spring products have been offline.

"The steel rolling process is basically handed over to the automated control system, and the workers are only responsible for remote control and on-site maintenance. It only takes six to seven people per shift to roll steel in a 'one-click' fashion." Ding Jing, director of the special steel bar branch plant of Masteel, said that since the production line was put into operation, the output and efficiency have increased year by year, and the product quality has also improved significantly.

The integration of the two can improve production efficiency and improve management level. In Xintian Steel Group, the operation center can monitor the data of the production site in real time, and the group compares the comprehensive cost, sintering solid consumption, steelmaking fuel ratio and other key indicators of its six plants every day to promote the cost reduction and efficiency of each plant. Compared with the pre-digital transformation, the Group's iron-making and steel-making process costs were reduced by 22% and 26% respectively.

One-click steelmaking, remote operation and maintenance, industrial robots... In recent years, many iron and steel enterprises have used cutting-edge technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence, and industrial Internet to promote the integration of a new generation of information technology and industrial scenarios, effectively improving production efficiency and operating efficiency. Baowu, Shagang, Nangang and other enterprises have established "black light factories" and intelligent workshops to achieve 24-hour unmanned and less unmanned operation. At present, the numerical control rate of key processes in the metallurgical industry has reached 66%.