Posted on 18 Jan 2022
China, the largest steel-producing country in the world, saw its crude steel output decline 3% on year to 1.03 billion in 2021, according to the latest data released by the country's National Bureau of Statistics on January 17.
The data officially marked that China had achieved its goal of keeping national crude steel output of 2021 lower than 2020, though by November, there was already little doubt in that given an on-year fall of 2.6% in crude steel production over January-November.
The 3% or around 35 million tonnes reduction in crude steel output was much in line with the estimation made by the China Iron and Steel Association back in December, as the association noted the joint efforts among domestic steelmakers in curbing steel production in the second half of last year in particular.
China intended to cut its crude steel output to better balance domestic steel supply and demand and to contribute to the long-term goals of reaching carbon peak and carbon neutrality by 2030 and 2060 respectively, Mysteel Global noted.
Source: NBS
In December alone, China's crude steel output still posted an on-year decline of 6.9%, though it recovered notably by 24.3% on month. Many Chinese steel producers resumed production in the last month of 2021, as by November, most of them were almost certain that they'd be able to meet Beijing's call for lower crude steel output for 2021.
Nevertheless, the pace of production resumption among Chinese steelmakers last December was slower than many had expected, which was mainly due to the frequent emergent restrictive measures in production to combat air pollution in Tangshan, the country's top steel-producing hub in North China's Hebei province, as Mysteel Global reported.
Last year, China's finished steel output, however, still saw an on-year growth of 0.6% to 1.34 billion tonnes. With lower crude steel supply, Chinese steelmakers managed to raise finished steel output via various means such as adding more steel scrap in converters during steelmaking, and importing primary steel including billets and slabs from abroad and then rolling them to finished products, according to market sources.
For 2022, Chinese steel market sources believed that various production restrictive measures among steel producers will still be in place as the country has repeatedly stated that it will continue to curb steel capacity and production in the long run.
Source:Mysteel Global
