The World Steel Association pointed out in the latest issue of World Steel Statistics 2019 released on June 3 that steel has been the material basis for social development and progress in the past 100 years. In the next 100 years, steel will continue to play a role in social development. The role of the foundation to meet the challenges of social development.
India's steel consumption potential is huge
According to World Steel Statistics 2019 released by the World Steel Association, global crude steel production continued to record a record high of 1.808 billion tons in 2018, an increase of 4.5% over 2017, the fourth consecutive year of growth since 2015. .In 2018, the global apparent consumption of steel reached 1.712 billion tons. In terms of countries and regions, China accounted for 48.8% of the total, and the apparent consumption of steel in India and Japan accounted for 5.6% and 3.8% respectively, the EU accounted for 9.9%, and the North American Free Trade Zone accounted for 8.3%. The proportion of joints reached 3.3%.
In 2018, the global per capita consumption reached 224.5 kg, and the global per capita crude steel consumption showed an overall upward trend. The per capita consumption in 2012 was 202.9 kg.
In terms of countries, in 2018, South Korea's per capita steel consumption reached 1047.2 kilograms, the highest level in the world; China's per capita steel consumption reached 590.1 kilograms, Japan reached 514.1 kilograms, Germany was 495.5 kilograms, Italy was 445.0 kilograms, and the United States was 306.5 kilograms. Russia is 285.9 kg and France is 215.9 kg.
It is worth pointing out that as the world's second largest steel producer, India's per capita steel consumption in 2018 is only 70.9 kg, still far below the world average. This is mainly related to India's large population base, and it also reflects the huge potential of Indian steel consumption. According to the national steel development plan formulated by the Indian government in 2017, India's steel production capacity will reach 300 million tons in 2030. The increase in Indian steel consumption is mainly due to the large amount of infrastructure construction demand generated by the urbanization process. The World Steel Association said in its short-term forecast report that the Indian economy has recovered from the double impact of the “waste order” and “GST” implementation, coupled with investment environment improvement and infrastructure construction. With double support, Indian steel demand is expected to return to a higher growth rate.
In 2018, the top 10 global steel producers are still China, India, Japan, the United States, South Korea, Russia, Germany, Turkey, Brazil, and Italy. Compared with 2017, the crude steel output rankings of individual countries have changed. In India, Japan surpassed Japan to become the world's second largest steel producer, and South Korea surpassed Russia to become the world's fifth largest steel producer.
From the top 50 steel companies in the world, 28 companies in China, the largest steel producer, were selected, an increase of 2 compared with 2017. Among the top 10 steel companies in the world, there are 6 companies listed in China.
Global electric furnace steelmaking ratio has steadily rebounded
From the production process point of view, in terms of production statistics, more than 70% of the world's crude steel is smelted by the blast furnace-converter long process, and most of the rest is electric furnace smelting. The global electric furnace steelmaking ratio gradually decreased from a high of 33.9% in 2000 to 24.2% in 2017, and it has steadily rebounded to 28.8% last year. It is worth mentioning that in 2018, China's electric furnace steel production accounted for 11.6%, which was the fourth consecutive year of increase; while the United States and Japan's electric furnace steel production ratio decreased compared with 2017. The share of electric furnace steel production in the United States decreased slightly from 68.4% in 2017 to 68.0%, and the proportion of Japanese electric furnace steel production decreased from 28% in 2017 to 25%.In fact, from the distribution of electric steelmaking, Asian long-flow steelmaking still dominates. If Asia is removed, in the global steelmaking, electric steelmaking and converter steelmaking are “equal to the world”.
According to data released by the World Steel Association, the output of global direct reduced iron is increasing year by year, and the output is close to 100 million tons. In 2018, global direct reduced iron production has reached 99.8 million tons, an increase of 11 million tons from 2017. In recent years, as the steel market has warmed up, scrap resources have been in a state of world shortage, and direct reduced iron and hot briquetted iron are the best alternatives to scrap. Due to the difference in distribution and cost of reducing agent resources (natural gas) around the world, the distribution of direct reduced iron presents a strong geographical feature. In terms of distribution, the major producers of direct reduced iron in the world are concentrated in the Middle East represented by Iran. The direct reduction iron production in the Middle East has reached more than 40 million tons, accounting for nearly half of the world. In addition, India's direct reduced iron production is also considerable, reaching more than 30 million tons in 2018. According to previous forecasts of the World Steel Association, as the output of electric steelmaking continues to increase, the global direct reduced iron production will reach 140 million tons by 2025.
