China`s steel consumption will continue to grow until 2025 due to rapid steel demand increase from the country's manufacturing sector, according to the report issued by London-based multinational financial services company Standard Chartered Bank.
According to the report, China's steel demand is anticipated to grow 155 million mt per year on average, and its annual steel demand will reach the peak of 823 million mt during 2013-2025, while the country's annual steel demand will decrease to 809 million mt by 2030.
Steel demand from construction sector in China, the main driver of steel demand in the last decade, will start decrease in 2014, while demand from the manufacturing sector is likely to take a bigger share.
Standard Chartered Bank pointed that in the coming decade, the long-term capacity utilization of Chinese mills is expected to stay close to 90 percent while China's steel industry will undergo structural change. Chinese steelmakers' new investments should move away from the currently dominant basic oxygen furnace (BOF) towards the electric arc furnace (EAF), according to the report, in line with the market's increasing scrap consumption in the coming years.