Liu Yanping, the secretary general of the Stainless Steel Branch of the China Special Steel Association, recently participated in the "Online Metal Week of the Industrial Training Base of the Last Period of 2020" that the stainless steel industry is facing dual pressures from increased domestic and international competition. .

Liu Yanping believes that the current domestic stainless steel industry is facing many challenges. The first is the high degree of dependence on raw materials. Although China is the country with the largest stainless steel production, nickel's external dependence is over 85%, chrome ore is almost 100% imported, and the source is also highly concentrated. Before the Indonesian ban on mines, the sources of nickel mines in China were mainly the Philippines and Indonesia. After Indonesia's ban on mines, China's main source country became the Philippines. The main source of chromium ore is South Africa, accounting for about 80%.

"The high concentration of sources adds some risks to our industry. If some local policies or some force majeure factors affect raw materials, we are facing the risk of shortage of raw materials." Liu Yanping said that price fluctuations also brought some to the industry Operational risks. Nickel prices rose and fell last year, and stainless steel companies are indeed facing greater risks.

In addition, the stainless steel industry is facing dual pressures from increased domestic and international competition. According to Liu Yanping, the downstream demand for stainless steel is not growing fast. In the next 2 to 3 years, the domestic new production capacity exceeds 10 million tons. The concentrated release of production capacity has intensified the competitive pressure of the stainless steel industry. In addition, considering the improvement of Indonesia's stainless steel industry chain construction, it will also form a new global stainless steel competition pattern.

Liu Yanping believes that the stainless steel industry needs to heat up and seek transformation and upgrading. Steel mills should cooperate with each other to complement each other. Steel mills and raw material companies must cooperate strongly, and then stabilize the supply of raw materials. International partners or investments.

Liu Yanping also pointed out that with the listing of stainless steel futures on the Shanghai Futures Exchange, the stainless steel pricing mechanism will undergo important changes. The stainless steel futures launched in the last issue will help to form a transparent, open and fair pricing mechanism, exert the decisive role of the market in the allocation of resources, and enhance China's pricing power in the international stainless steel market. Stainless steel enterprises can use futures to escort their production and operation, which is beneficial to the majority of stainless steel production, consumption and circulation enterprises at home and abroad to use futures tools to manage price risk.