Chinanews.com, Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia, November 11 (Xinhua) -- Strengthen the guarantee of raw material resources and help the steel industry to "break through" safely
Author of Zhongxin Finance and Economics Yin Qianyun
How to build a high-quality industrial chain and supply chain in the steel industry and achieve stable supply and price of raw materials has always been the focus of discussion in the industry. At the 2023 Steel Industry Chain Safety and Security Conference held in Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia, a number of experts discussed the theme of "Strengthening Raw Material Security and Consolidating Industrial Chain Security".
"Iron ore and other raw materials are the food of the steel industry, and they are also a key factor related to the security of China's industrial chain and supply chain." Shi Yijun, deputy director of the Iron and Steel Division of the Department of Raw Materials Industry of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that at present, China's iron and steel industry is accelerating the transformation from quantitative development to quality, and a major difficulty is the guarantee of resources such as iron ore.
It occupies nearly half of the world's steel industry's production capacity, but its raw material iron ore is highly dependent on foreign countries, which is indeed a problem that China's steel industry chain needs to face.
In this regard, Xiao Bangguo, vice president of the Metallurgical Industry Planning and Research Institute, mentioned in his speech that for the iron and steel industry, promoting the development of domestic iron ore resources, accelerating the development of new overseas equity iron ore and raw materials such as scrap steel, ferroalloy and carbon is an important measure to promote the stable and sustainable development of the iron and steel industry chain.
Concrete initiatives have been rolled out and are continuing to advance. Luo Tiejun, vice president of China Iron and Steel Association, pointed out that in order to enhance the resource guarantee capacity of the steel industry, China Iron and Steel Association put forward the "cornerstone plan", which aims to use 10 to 15 years to effectively change the composition of China's iron resources and fundamentally make up for the shortcomings of the steel industry chain. Luo Tiejun said that after the implementation of the plan, more than 10 key domestic iron ore projects have started construction, and the new iron concentrate capacity is about 5000 million tons.
Looking forward to the future trend of iron ore raw material security, Fan Tiejun, president of the Metallurgical Planning Industry Research Institute, mentioned that the overall pig iron output will show a downward trend in the future, and the demand for iron ore will also decline synchronously, and the domestic demand for high-grade and low-impurity iron ore products will continue to increase in the future. In the medium term, in the context of oversupply of iron ore, iron ore prices will fluctuate at a low level. At the same time, the price spread of high-quality raw materials will widen.
Therefore, in addition to the implementation of specific plans, the resource guarantee of the steel industry also needs more long-term strategic planning.
Luo Tiejun said that on the one hand, it is necessary to speed up the development of domestic resources, promote the construction of domestic key projects, so that qualified mineral resources can be discovered more and used faster, and promote the increase of reserves and production of important mineral resources. On the other hand, it is necessary to adhere to the opening up to the outside world, strengthen and develop cooperation with the international mineral resources industry, strengthen the guidance and coordination of overseas mineral resources investment, promote the development of overseas mineral resources and diversification of import sources, and continue to promote the internationalization process of China's iron and steel industry.
Fan Tiejun believes that multi-dimensional and diversified resource guarantee channels should be established. At the same time, improve the concentration of the iron and steel industry, and change the current problem of weak price discourse due to the unequal status of iron ore supply and demand. In addition, we should also increase technological innovation in technology and technology, reduce the demand for traditional raw materials, promote large-scale, green and intelligent development, and increase the supply capacity of high-quality raw materials. (ENDS)