Baosteel Completely Launches Zhanjiang Project

After nearly a year of “long test”, Baosteel finally laid an important part in the strategic layout. On Friday, the Baosteel Zhanjiang Iron and Steel Project blast furnace construction was started and the public and auxiliary facilities for the six major projects were fully started. Baosteel stated that after optimizing the construction plan, it is not only necessary to “build” Zhanjiang Steel, but also “build it”.

Investment income has become a key issue Since the first stake in the Zhanjiang Iron and Steel Project was laid on May 31 last year, doubts about the slow progress of the project have occurred repeatedly. In this regard, Zhao Zhouli, deputy general manager of Baosteel Group, chairman of Zhanjiang Iron & Steel Co., Ltd., and Zhanjiang Iron and Steel Engineering Command Director gave an explanation.

He said that since the start of last year, Baosteel has been working on the optimization of project construction plans and the exploration of management models to ensure project competitiveness. Investment income is one of the most critical decision factors. Over the past year, Baosteel has studied the product process, management model, and control investment of Zhanjiang Iron and Steel Project, and successfully optimized the plan. At the same time, Baosteel decided to build the Zhanjiang Iron and Steel Base as an investment subject and give full play to the technology and technology of Baosteel. The advantage of resources is to adopt the management system of “one plant and one plant” to achieve the most suitable construction plan for the project, the shortest ramp-up period for trial production, and the best operating results.

It is reported that Zhanjiang Steel blast furnace project consists of two blast furnaces and its more than 10 ancillary facilities, with an annual output of 8.23 ​​million tons of hot metal, with an annual output of 2.711 million tons of water slag, and an annual output of 11.9 billion cubic meters of blast furnace gas.

The product must adapt to the market Zhanjiang steel production, what is the future product positioning? Zhao Zhouli pointed out that for Zhanjiang Iron and Steel, it is first required that the product structure be adapted to the demand structure of the target market. At the same time, he also responded positively to the competition with WISCO Fangchenggang project.

As the largest steel consumption market in China, the self-sufficiency rate of steel in the Guangdong market is about 40%, of which the self-sufficiency rate of sheet is 33%, and most of the steel needs to be imported or imported from outside the province. The products of Zhanjiang Iron and Steel Base are mainly based on meeting the needs of Guangdong Province's regional high-end carbon steel sheet products. Zhanjiang Steel will become a production base for high-end automotive customers, high-end home appliance manufacturers and other high-grade carbon steel fine sheet products, which not only can fill the demand for high-end products in this region in China, but also can be exported to the Southeast Asian market to form Baosteel's market in South China. Leading power.

Zhanjiang and Fangchenggang are “near neighbors” and the construction of the Zhanjiang steel project directly brings about competition in the two major steel projects. Zhao Zhouli commented on his own view: As long as there is a market, there will be competition. Competition will make investment more cautious, the market will judge more accurately, the advantages and disadvantages of itself will be clearer, and the choice of competitive strategies will be more targeted. He is convinced that the Zhanjiang project must be competitive. He said that Zhanjiang Steel must strive to embody the "simple, speed, and cost" approach. Through the coordinated operation of Baosteel's three bases, it should also have the highest level of automation, information, and intelligence.

The iron and steel industry is still not optimistic. From the current point of view, the general situation of the steel industry oversupplying, fierce competition, and entering a state of meager profit management may continue for a long time. This also puts a greater test on Baosteel.

The report released yesterday by the China Iron and Steel Association stated that steel consumption in April entered the peak season, but due to factors such as lower than expected demand growth, faster release of steel production capacity, and higher inventory pressure, steel prices continued to decline; There has been an increase, but the oversupply situation is difficult to reverse, and the rebound in steel prices is insufficient.

In the latter stage, the crude steel market still needs to be destocked. Affected by the protection of international trade, the export of steel products has become more difficult. Several countries have successively launched anti-dumping and countervailing investigations on the export of Chinese steel products, especially the ASEAN countries’ steel products in China. Exports will be fully suppressed and the difficulty of exporting Chinese steel products will further increase.

Zhao Zhouli emphasized that Baosteel will make full use of internal intellectual resources. Persist in benchmarking with international advanced steel companies, define the overall labor efficiency goals of the new steel mills in the future, and greatly improve the labor efficiency of steel mills by increasing the level of equipment automation, establishing a market-oriented employment mechanism, and promoting occupational transformation and other measures Promote Zhanjiang Steel's goal of achieving the highest efficiency in the world.