China's stainless steel pipe industry outlook
China's stainless steel pipe product structure needs to be adjusted, China's stainless steel pipe production capacity has been greater than the overall market demand, but the medium and low grade of stainless steel pipe market supply exceeds demand. The production of pipes used in the high-steel standard manufacturing industry is not perfect, especially high-quality pipes, such as high-pressure stainless steel boiler tubes for power stations and Marine engineering pipes are still partly dependent on imports.
With the rapid development of China's stainless steel pipe industry, the industry coverage will be more and more broad, and the consumption will increase year by year. During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, China's demand for stainless steel pipe maintained a steady growth trend, especially in energy, decoration engineering, stations, venues, office buildings and residential building water pipes, machinery and other industries, the demand is greater, the market competition is more intense. In the future, the main task of the stainless steel pipe industry is not only large scale, but more important is to increase scientific and technological investment, improve the ability of technological innovation, so that the product is superior, and at the same time, we must have the ability to resist the impact of domestic and foreign market risks.
Nickel and chromium are scarce in China. The development of high technology content, high value-added stainless steel pipe products, production of raw material resources to be guaranteed. It is necessary to encourage the development of domestic resources to establish a nickel and chromium resource reserve mechanism, expand the import sources of nickel and chromium ore through multiple channels, and promote the construction of overseas resource bases, so as to continuously improve the domestic nickel and chromium ore resources support capacity and solve the problem of high concentration of nickel and chromium ore sources.
In the future, the use of stainless steel scrap will continue to increase, and the cost and quality control problems involved in the change of charge should be paid attention to. We should pay attention to the stainless steel pipe manufacturing, processing process pollutant abatement, pickling process and related technology application, constantly reduce costs, increase enterprise profits, to achieve green, low carbon, high quality development.
The development and utilization of metallurgical new energy are accelerating, which should attract the attention of stainless steel pipe industry. On the one hand, we should see the development trend and grasp the opportunities; On the other hand, it is also necessary to put forward new requirements in terms of variety, quality, service, technological innovation, intelligent manufacturing and green development, and actively respond to the needs of downstream industries.
In order to promote the transformation, upgrading and high-quality development of the steel industry, the Customs Tariff Commission of The State Council (Ministry of Finance) adjusted the export tax rates of steel products twice in May and August 2021, with the approval of The State Council. In the first adjustment, the export tax rate of 25%, the temporary export tax rate of 20% and the temporary export tax rate of 15% shall be implemented respectively. The second adjustment applies export tax rates of 40% and 20% respectively. Export tax rebate cancellation, coupled with international anti-dumping, steel pipe industry export difficulty will increase, steel pipe exports may decline.
Overall, China has become a big country of stainless steel pipe, the production scale and quality level has gradually reached the international level, the large and complete stainless steel pipe production line is constantly improving, with the ability to provide users with high-quality products, laying the foundation for China's high-quality stainless steel pipe production.
Looking forward to the "14th Five-Year Plan", the stainless steel pipe industry should increase the investment in product research and development and scientific and technological innovation, and do a good job in product structure adjustment and upgrading. The author believes that the market demand for stainless steel pipe (or apparent consumption) will not decline this year, because China's economy will continue to maintain steady growth in 2021, infrastructure construction will not reduce the strength of the shortcomings, and the promotion role of the "Belt and Road" construction will gradually appear; Beautiful China, beautiful countryside, consumption upgrading, industrial strong base, equipment upgrading, office buildings and residential buildings will provide opportunities for the development of stainless steel pipe industry, effectively promote the growth of stainless steel pipe consumption, make up for the gap caused by the export block. In addition, due to the functionality and irreplaceability of stainless steel pipes, excluding the impact of natural disasters and epidemics, it is expected that the production and sales of stainless steel pipes in China will still show a steady upward trend this year.