Plenty of steel capacity left in China's pipeline

摘要

China's crude steel capacity replacement scheme will see 92.88 million mt/year of new facilities commissioned in 2020, but the amount of closed capacity will be a similar amount, resulting in a small net increase on an installed capacity basis. However, new steelmaking technologies and efficiencies mean capacity growth will be greater than expected, driving demand for higher quality raw materials. New net capacity will grow by just 0.73 million mt/year in 2020 and by 4.5 million mt/year in 2021, according to S&P Global Platts analysis. This is in contrast to 2019, when a net 35 million mt/year of new capacity will be commissioned, making it the biggest jump in new capacity seen for many years, and taking China's total crude steel capacity to around 1.2 billion mt/year.