Speaking at the SteelOrbis 2019 Spring Conference & 80th IREPAS Meeting held in Barcelona on April 7-9, Jiang Xiaodong, Assistant President, Director of Comprehensive Planning Department at China Metallurgical Industry Planning and Research Institute (MPI) said that the capacity exchange in China lead to new blast furnaces, converters and electric arc furnaces. By the end of 2018, total number of crude steel capacity exchange summed up to 170 million mt, with 20 million of which have been completed and others are expected to be done in the next 2-3 years. At the end, total steel capacity in the country will be around 1 billion mt.
Mr. Jiang pointed out that there 3 points that never changes for China; steel production and consumption will remain high for a long time, steel industry will continue to play an important role in supporting basic and strategic emerging industries for a long time and the iron and steel industry will remain the key target of national macro-control and policy measures for a long time. He added that the steel industry is a very important indicator of real economy and that is why in China so many leaders care about steel industry so much.
Regarding the scrap generation in China, the MPI official said that in 2018, scrap consumption in the country was 220 million mt and by 2025, scrap in China is expected to be more than 270 million mt, which Mr. Jiang said will create favorable market conditions for electric arc furnaces.
Answering a question about Chinese iron ore production, the MPI official explained that China can increase its domestic iron ore production depending on iron ore prices. He added that there are more than 100 million mt of iron ore inventory at Chinese ports and China might increase iron ore production if prices go above $90/mt mark.