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

What remains unchanged is China's solid position as the world's No. 1 steel power. Since steel production exceeded 100 million tons in 1996, ranking first in the world, China has been ranked first in global steel production and consumption for 26 consecutive years. Last year, China's steel production reached 1.035 billion tons, accounting for 53 percent of global output.

What has changed is the continuous optimization and improvement of industrial structure, technical level, production efficiency and enterprise efficiency. In particular, after experiencing the "scratch and cure" of capacity reduction, the steel industry bid farewell to the old road of extensive development and gradually embarked on a new road of innovation-driven, intelligent manufacturing, and green and low-carbon. Take products as an example, from large steel structure support columns, high-speed EMU axle, to the thickness of only 0.015 mm "hand-torn steel", processing accuracy is thinner than the hair "pen steel", more varieties, stronger performance, wider market.

In the past 10 years, what gratifying changes have taken place in China's steel industry, and what opportunities and challenges will it face in the future? The reporter conducted an interview.

Strength to a new level

The quality and efficiency of the industry are improved, the product level is higher, and the autonomous and controllable ability is stronger

Into China Baowu Taisteel Stainless Steel Precision Strip Co., LTD., a roll of steel strip after rolling, tension straightening, slitting, bright and other processes, into different specifications of high-strength "steel foil". The company's fist product "hand-torn steel" from here, into the aerospace, high-end electronics, new energy and other fields.

"In 2021, the production and sales volume of 'hand-torn steel' increased by 2 times compared with 2020, the operating income increased by more than 30%, and the profit increased by nearly 2 times." Company manager Wang Tianxiang reported the good news.

To make "Bai-steelmaking" into "soft around the fingers" is difficult and of great significance. In the past, domestic enterprises could not produce, and one ton of imports would cost one million yuan. After TISCO developed it, the price was immediately reduced by half, the supply cycle was shortened from half a year to one month, and the needs of domestic customers were better met. Nanhai, director of TISCO Technology Center, told reporters that at present, 18 special steel products of TISCO are the first in China, more than 40 kinds of products have successfully replaced imports, and the efficiency of high-end products accounts for more than 85%.

Overcome difficulties, braced for innovation, since the 18th National Congress of the Party, the steel industry has achieved major breakthroughs in a number of key core technologies and product research and development, to better meet the needs of thousands of lines of business and thousands of households

The manufacture of liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage tanks requires steel bars that can withstand temperatures as low as -165 degrees Celsius. In order to fill the domestic gap, China Baowuma Steel Group independently developed 500 mpa low-temperature steel bars, so that China's LNG storage tanks with domestic steel.

High-speed rail runs fast and stable, can not be separated from the excellent quality of high-speed wheels. At present, the "Fuxing" EMU D2 high-speed wheels produced by Masteel have passed the loading assessment of 600,000 kilometers, and the longest safe use mileage exceeds 2.74 million kilometers.

How to make the surface bright and leave no fingerprints? Hegang Tanggang installed black fingerprint resistant film in the galvanizing process of the electric plate at home, so that the "sophisticated" needs can be met.

How can a ballpoint pen write smoothly? In the past five years, TISCO has explored the appropriate proportion of trace elements, successfully mastered the homogenization of precious metal alloys and other technologies, and developed a "pen tip steel" with a diameter of 2.3 mm.

"At present, China has established the world's most complete industrial chain, the largest steel industry system, equipped with the world's most advanced equipment, technology and technology, can provide the most comprehensive steel products." He Wenbo, secretary of the Party Committee of the China Iron and Steel Association, said that since the 18th National Congress of the Party, the modernization level of the steel industry has been continuously improved.

Industrial improvement of quality and efficiency. At present, the investment efficiency, infrastructure efficiency, operational efficiency and labor efficiency of China's steel industry are among the top in the world. Domestic steel prices are lower than the international market, so that downstream industries can enjoy inexpensive industrial raw materials.

The product level is higher. In the past 10 years, a number of steel products such as automotive steel, large-scale transformer electrical steel, high-performance long-distance pipeline steel, high-speed rail, and construction bridge steel have successively entered the international first echelon, and the third generation of high-strength automotive steel, high-steel grade pipeline steel and other products have realized the transformation from "following" to "leading".

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%.

-- Complete industrial system, strong domestic market support, so that the steel industry chassis more stable.

Last year, the Luoyang Science and Technology Museum under construction was the first to "eat crabs" in the national construction field: the first application of domestic heavy H-shaped steel.

"In the past, when constructing large steel structure buildings in China, either imported H-shaped steel products were used, or plate welding was used, which was difficult and costly." Zhang Jian, director of Masteel Technology Center, said that in the past, architectural designers are not familiar with what domestic steel enterprises can provide products, these two years, Masteel in order to expand the market, take the initiative to strengthen communication and close cooperation with nearly 100 architectural design institutes in China, "' hand 'Tsinghua University architectural design Institute, let Luoyang Science and Technology Museum use the high-quality steel we provide, but also let Masteel harvest a new growth point."

Construction, machinery, home appliances, automobiles, ships, high-speed rail, bicycles, motorcycles, containers, hardware products... Rich application scenarios, complete industrial system for China's iron and steel enterprises have brought the unique advantage of "near the water tower first".

On the one hand, "refueling" for production. After years of development, China's iron and steel equipment level ranks among the world's first-class, coking, sintering, iron making, steel making, continuous casting, steel rolling and other main processes of the main technical equipment can basically be independently developed, large-scale metallurgical equipment localization rate reached more than 95%.

On the other hand, "upping the ante" for demand. "In recent years, the rapid development of China's new energy automobile industry has made the market demand for high-grade non-oriented silicon steel explosive growth. In 2017, the domestic market demand was only 60,000 tons, and this year it is expected to exceed 380,000 tons." In the view of the South China Sea, the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry will bring broad space for high-end steel products.

Development has ushered in a new phase

In the future, efforts should be made to overcome resource and environmental constraints and achieve high-quality development

More than 130 advanced environmental protection technologies such as desulfurization and denitrification are used to achieve full purification of flue gas and efficient treatment of pollutants in production units. Using a new generation of treatment technology, the steel slag "eat dry squeeze"; Create fully closed corridors and media pipelines to minimize the environmental impact of coke, iron ore powder... In September 2020, Hebei Iron and Steel Tanggang New Area was put into operation, and all emission indicators were designed to be 10% lower than the most stringent standards in the industry.

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, under the joint promotion of relevant regulatory requirements and enterprise development needs, iron and steel enterprises have generally increased investment in environmental protection, the application of advanced energy saving and emission reduction technologies, and a number of green garden-style factories and environmentally friendly factories have been born. By the end of 2021, 34 enterprises in the steel industry with about 225 million tons of steel production capacity have completed ultra-low emission transformation publicity.

According to the statistics of the China Iron and Steel Association, compared with 2012, in 2021, the average comprehensive energy consumption per ton of steel in key iron and steel enterprises has been reduced from 602.71 kilograms of standard coal to 550.43 kilograms of standard coal, and the gap with the world's advanced level has been greatly reduced; The emissions of sulfur dioxide and smoke dust per ton of steel also decreased by 81.41% and 63.44% respectively.

It is worth noting that the ultra-low emission transformation is mainly aimed at PM2.5, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and other pollutants, and to achieve the goal of carbon peak carbon neutrality, the steel industry still needs to implement a new task - carbon reduction.

"Among all industrial sectors in China, the steel industry is second only to the thermal power industry in terms of carbon emissions." Chen Derong, secretary of the Party Committee and chairman of China Baowu Iron and Steel Group Co., LTD., believes that the "double carbon" goal will promote fundamental changes in the development model of the steel industry, which requires the steel industry to develop and promote new energy metallurgical technology as soon as possible.

Many enterprises have taken action: Baowu, Hesteel, Jianlong, Jiusteel and other enterprises have carried out research and development on cutting-edge low-carbon technologies such as hydrogen-rich carbon cycle blast furnaces and hydrogen-based shaft furnaces and made significant progress. It is reported that the National Development and Reform Commission is working with relevant departments to develop a carbon peak implementation plan for the steel industry to further refine the relevant requirements.

On the way forward, in addition to coping with environmental pressure, the steel industry has to crack another issue: breaking the resource constraint and enhancing the ability to safeguard iron resources.

At present, there are three main sources of iron resources in China: overseas ore, domestic ore and scrap steel. "Multiple measures should be taken at the same time to establish a stable and reliable diversified raw material supply system." He Wenbo gave suggestions: First, open up green channels to strengthen domestic iron ore development; Second, strengthen international cooperation to diversify supply; The third is to speed up the recycling of scrap steel and make good use of scrap resources.

"Good use of scrap resources" can kill two birds with one stone: it can reduce iron ore consumption in production, but also help reduce carbon emissions. Different from the blast furnace and converter process with iron ore as the main raw material, the pollutant emission and carbon emission intensity of the electric furnace process with scrap steel as the main raw material are lower, only equivalent to about 25% of the former. The relevant departments have proposed that by 2025, the proportion of electric steel production in the total output of crude steel will increase to more than 15%.

The innovation capacity has been significantly enhanced, the industrial structure has been continuously optimized, green and low-carbon has been further promoted, resource security has been greatly improved, and the quality of supply has been continuously improved. In February this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other departments issued the "Guidance on Promoting the high-quality Development of the Steel Industry", which clarified the target path for the development of the steel industry in the next period of time. "Under the background of the impact of the novel coronavirus pneumonia epidemic and the reconstruction of the global industrial chain, the advantages of China's steel industry chain being relatively complete and relatively strong technological autonomy have been further highlighted." He Wenbo is convinced that in the future, the steel industry will move steadily on the path of high-quality development and better meet the needs of development.