Production reached a record high. From January to June 2013, China’s total production of crude steel was 390 million tons, up 7.4% year on year, 5.6 percentage points higher than that of the same period last year. In the first six months, the average daily output of crude steel was 2.154 million tons, equivalent to 786 million tons per year. Among them, it reached a record high of 2.28 million tons in February, and remained at a high level of more than 2.1 million tons despite a fall in March June. In terms of provinces and regions, from January to June, the crude steel production of Hebei Province and Jiangsu Province increased by 6.8% and 13.2% year-on-year, respectively. The total new production of the two provinces accounted for 42.4% of the increase of 26.94 million tons in China. In addition, the production of Shanxi, Liaoning, Henan and Yunnan provinces also increased by more than 1 million tons. According to the types of enterprises, from January to June, the crude steel output of key large and medium-sized iron and steel enterprises increased by 5.5% year on year, which was 2 percentage points lower than the national average growth rate, but 60% of the increase came from key large and medium-sized iron and steel enterprises.
Low price operation of Stainless Steel. From January to June 2013, the overall performance of domestic steel market was low. With the large release of crude steel production capacity, the market supply and demand fell into an unbalanced state, and steel prices entered a decline channel, which has been weak for more than four months. As of July 26, 2013, the steel price index dropped to 100.48, lower than 6.6 at the beginning of the year. The prices of the eight steel products which are mainly counted by the iron and Steel Industry Association have declined in varying degrees compared with the beginning of this year, with an average decline of 5.7%. In terms of varieties, the prices of construction wire rod and screw steel, which account for a large proportion of China’s steel production, dropped by 4.9% and 6.7% respectively, while the prices of medium and thick plates and hot rolled coils dropped by 5.7% and 9.7% respectively.
