Reporter Zhou Xuesong
Recently, the State Council officially issued the "Carbon Peak Action Plan before 2030" (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan"). Experts interviewed by the China Economic Times reporter said that carbon peaking has a positive impact on the steel industry and is conducive to the development of the industry in the long run.
In the first three quarters of this year, benefiting from the improvement of the steel industry, the operating income and net profit of listed steel companies showed a substantial increase year-on-year, and 36 of the 37 listed steel companies tracked by Lange Steel Research Center achieved positive year-on-year growth in operating income. Data released by the China Iron and Steel Association shows that the economic benefits of steel companies in the third quarter have increased significantly, and profits have doubled year-on-year.
Carbon peaking has a profound impact on the industry
How does carbon peaking affect the steel industry? Hu Qimu, chief researcher of the China Steel Economic Research Institute, said in an interview with this reporter that it is beneficial in the long run. "If you don't reduce carbon now, you will bear the high cost of carbon in the future."
Ge Xin, deputy director of Lange Steel Research Center, told this reporter that the step-by-step implementation of the low-carbon target will have an important impact on the domestic steel industry. First, from the perspective of the supply of the domestic steel industry, the "Plan" proposes energy conservation and carbon reduction and efficiency increase actions, carbon peaking actions in the industrial field, and circular economy to help carbon reduction actions, which will have a profound impact on the development of the supply side of the domestic steel industry. In the action of energy conservation and carbon reduction and efficiency, "double control of energy consumption" will become an important starting point, strictly control the intensity of energy consumption, and reasonably control the total amount of energy consumption, which will significantly limit the release of existing steel production capacity. In the industrial field carbon peak action, low-carbon transformation and high-quality development will be the top priority, will deepen the structural reform of the supply side of the steel industry, thereby limiting the re-expansion of steel production capacity, while optimizing the structure of existing steel production capacity, using advanced smelting technology to dig deep into the energy-saving and carbon-saving potential in the steel smelting and production process. At the same time, the circular economy will help comprehensively improve the efficiency of resource utilization in the carbon reduction action, and will also effectively help the low-carbon structural transformation of the domestic steel industry, and implement the low-carbon concept and recycling into the entire steel production process, so as to achieve low-carbon applications in the whole process of steel production.
Second, from the perspective of the needs of the domestic steel industry, among the ten key actions proposed in the "Plan", the energy green and low-carbon transformation action, the energy conservation and carbon reduction and efficiency improvement action, the urban and rural construction carbon peak action, and the transportation green and low carbon action will make the domestic steel industry demand move in the direction of high quality. At the same time, energy conservation and carbon reduction and efficiency improvement actions will implement energy conservation and carbon reduction projects in key industries, and promote energy conservation and carbon reduction transformation in the electric power, steel, non-ferrous metals, building materials, petrochemical, chemical and other industries, which will drive the demand for steel for a large number of green equipment.
"The "Plan" will have a profound impact on the domestic steel industry, and the supply side will focus on limiting the release of steel production capacity and optimizing and adjusting the structure of stock production capacity; while the demand for steel will mainly improve the demand quality of the downstream steel industry and adjust the downstream steel demand structure." The "Plan" will start from the two aspects of supply and demand, and promote the domestic steel industry to gradually move towards the road of high-quality development. Ge Xin said.
"Reducing production without reducing efficiency" may be realized
According to the data of China Iron and Steel Association, the performance of the steel industry in the third quarter was eye-catching, from January to September, the operating income of member steel enterprises was 5,299.8 billion yuan, an increase of 42.52% year-on-year; the total profit achieved was 319.3 billion yuan, an increase of 1.23 times; the average sales profit margin was 6.03%, up 2.18 percentage points year-on-year. At the end of September, the asset-liability ratio of member steel companies was 61.37%, down 1.58 percentage points year-on-year. The economic benefits of steel enterprises have been significantly improved, and the asset-liability structure has been further optimized.
"From the perspective of the third quarter alone, the revenue and profit growth rate of listed steel companies has generally slowed down, and the year-on-year growth rate of operating income and non-net profit of most enterprises is lower than that of the first half of the year." Wang Jing, a researcher at Lange Steel Research Center, told this reporter that the main factors affecting the operating income of enterprises are in addition to the price of products, as well as the production and sales of their products. In terms of cost, the price of iron ore, the main raw material, was greatly adjusted in the third quarter, while the price of bifocal rose sharply, and the cost of raw materials was still high.
According to Lange Steel Research Center, the average pig iron cost index in the third quarter was 178.9, an increase of about 4% over the second quarter and about 49% over the same period last year. In the case of shrinking production and sales, steel prices and costs are at a high level, the overall growth rate of corporate profits in the third quarter slowed down, some corporate earnings still maintained a good level, and the profits of some enterprises weakened significantly.
Hu Qimu said that he is optimistic about the fourth quarter performance of the steel industry. "Because the situation is that the downstream demand is relatively strong, and the upstream raw material prices have begun to decline, the overall profit situation will definitely be better."
In Hu Qimu's view, steel companies may achieve "reduced production without reducing efficiency".