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Oil and gas have always been the most needed resources in the world, and since Europe reduced imports of Russian gas, it has been in a state of natural gas shortage, so that Germany has simply withdrawn its 2035 carbon neutrality target and restarted thermal power plants. Europe has long relied heavily on Russian gas, just as countries around the world have relied on the continent's rare earths. However, in addition to relying on Chinese rare earths, they also rely on Chinese steel. Some time ago, the United States steel shortage sharply, Australia's steel plan also failed, only China to maintain the normal supply of steel, how good is China's steel? This article tells you.
China's steel production ranks first
The Middle East has oil, and China has rare earths. This saying has been around the world for a long time, but nowadays China has not only rare earths, but also steel. Since 1996, China's steel production has become the world's first, since 2001, China's steel production has exceeded the sum of other countries in the world, such as Hebei's steel production is comparable to the entire United States, the mainland's annual output has reached a total of more than 1 billion tons, many countries in the world until now are very dependent on China's steel supply, especially developed countries.
The United States is more dependent on foreign steel imports
Take the United States as an example, the United States is actually a country with relatively rich natural resources, but as the United States becomes more and more developed, many Americans are accustomed to making "easy and simple" money, rather than doing those that require hard work and hard work. That is to say, they have always focused on science and technology and future fields, and abandoned those basic industries and basic manufacturing industries, relying too much on design and marketing to make money. In the short term, the United States is indeed very clever in this approach, which can make a lot of money without spending too much effort. But in the long run, this approach in the United States is highly susceptible to market volatility.
China reduces steel exports to the United States
With the emergence of the epidemic, the United States began to reduce imports of Chinese steel in order to reduce losses, and In order to ensure its own supply, China's direct steel exports to the United States were reduced from 8 million tons to 5 million tons, almost halved, and there was almost no steel industry in the United States, so it directly triggered the "steel shortage" in the United States. As a "country sitting on a minecart" and a right-hand man for the United States, will Australia lend a helping hand in this "steel shortage" in the United States?
Australia began to raise the price of iron ore
Since China reduced its imports of Australian products, Australia has begun to raise the price of iron ore because they know that China is very dependent on Australian iron ore. They hope to alleviate their losses to a certain extent through the increase in the price of iron ore. As we all know, iron ore is the most important raw material for the manufacture of steel, which has caused the cost of steel production to rise. Australia hopes to help the United States in this way, promote the increase in China's production costs, and let China export steel to the United States through "small profits but high sales", so that the problem of steel shortage in the United States has been solved and Australia has gained the economy.
China Steel's response
Such a small trick was suddenly seen through by the mainland, the measures taken by the mainland are to increase the mining and import of iron ore in Africa on the one hand, and reduce the import of iron ore in Australia on the other hand, China's epidemic prevention and control measures are very good, the economy has hardly encountered any obstacles, and Australia is not OK, the loss of the epidemic plus China's reduction of import losses, Australia can not support it in a few days. Finally, the price of australian iron ore fell, and China also chose to continue to buy Australian iron ore. Through these, I believe that everyone has seen how good China's steel is, right?