What Is The Current Status of The Stainless Steel Industry?

With the rapid development of China’s manufacturing level, China’s stainless steel industry has achieved remarkable results, and the variety diversity and quality stability have been greatly improved, providing effective support for the upgrading of the construction industry, high-end equipment manufacturing, and daily hardware industry. However, due to the slowdown in the growth rate of the downstream steel industry and the continued expansion of stainless steel production capacity, the entire industry is still facing overcapacity problems. So what is the current status of the stainless steel industry?
From the analysis of the stainless steel industry, it is understood that during the “Thirteenth Five-Year Plan” period, China’s economy maintained a steady growth trend, and energy and power demand continued to increase. The upgrading of China’s thermal power generating units will increase the consumption of stainless steel. Under the background of the current surge in environmental protection pressures in the country, China’s environmental protection equipment market has strong demand and great development potential. With the continuous improvement of people’s living standards, the output of medicines and food machinery will continue to grow. On the whole, there is still much room for growth in the future of stainless steel consumption in the machinery industry.

By the end of 2017, China’s stainless steel crude steel smelting capacity was nearly 40 million tons, and the output was 25.773 million tons, but the capacity utilization rate was only 64.43%. In 2017, the apparent consumption of stainless steel reached 1984.68 million tons. From the perspective of the consumption structure of stainless steel in 2016, the downstream of stainless steel was mainly manufacturing, accounting for 75.43%, and the construction sector accounted for 24.57%. Comprehensive supply and demand, stainless steel crude steel production capacity is currently in an oversupply state, the production capacity is relatively surplus.

From the perspective of supply and demand balance, the oversupply situation is obvious. According to industry statistics, the crude steel output of 34 domestic stainless steel producers in the first quarter of 2018 totaled 6.61 million tons, an increase of 10.08% compared with last year. Among them, the increase in production in January was the most, with an increase of nearly 29.32% over the same period of last year. The increase in production was mainly in Qingshan, Delong, Huale and Guangxi Jinhai, with an increase of about 560,000 tons.

In the recent rapid development of the stainless steel market, the consumption of stainless steel in China’s vast rural areas has remained at a very low level, and the potential of China’s rural market is huge. With the improvement of the quality of stainless steel in China, the consumption of stainless steel related products by relatively wealthy strata and regions in China needs to be upgraded and upgraded, which has driven the demand for high-end stainless steel products. With the accelerated development of domestic industry, stainless steel and corrosion-resistant alloys with higher quality and more varieties are needed. In recent years, the increase in nickel consumption and duplex stainless steel production reflects the rising demand for advanced alloy materials in China’s industrialization process. situation.

At present, the capacity of crude steel that has been built has reached 30.5 million tons, and 10 million tons of capacity under construction will be released one after another. The contradiction of overcapacity has already emerged. The ever-expanding rail transit such as high-speed rail and subway, as well as the escalating transportation facilities such as ships and pipelines, will continue to expand the demand for stainless steel. The grand plan of “One Belt, One Road” began to be implemented, and the wisdom of manufacturing made by China Manufacturing 2025 will flourish, which will support the demand for stainless steel, which will also ease the huge pressure of overcapacity.

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Hales H.//SMC Editor

Guest contributors are welcome at the Alloy Wiki.It is a weekly wiki and guide on alloy information and processing technology, while also about the vast array of opportunities that are present in manufacturing. Our team of writers consists of a Machining Material Supplier / Machinist / Tool and Die Maker, a Biomedical Engineer / Product Development Engineer, a Job Development Coordinator / Adjunct Professor, and a President and CEO of a manufacturing facility.