China’s steel scrap supply and consumption have been and will see sustainable growths in the coming years, with the consumption for 2019 rising to 240 million tonnes from 2018’s 220 million tonnes, or up 9% on year, Feng Helin, vice secretary-general of the China Association of Metal scrap Utilization (CAMU), said at the Mysteel Bulk Commodities Week 2020 Scrap Seminar on December 13.
China’s steel scrap consumption has been growing steadily since mid-2017 when all the induction furnaces were scrapped, and as for the total 240 million tonnes, 90% of steel scrap or about 215 million tonnes is expected to consume in converters and electric arc furnaces (EAFs), another 7.5% or 18 million tonnes in diecasting, and the balance of 10 million tonnes are fed into blast furnaces, he shared the breakdowns.
On the assumption of 990 million tonnes of crude steel output for 2019 for China, scrap consumption in total steel production, thus, is expected to rise to 21.5% for 2019 from 20.2% for 2018, while crude steel output via EAFs may remain largely steady at about 9.9% of the country’s total steel output against the 9.8% proportion for 2018 mainly because of lack of competitiveness for EAF mills against BF mills, he added.
So far for 2018 and 2019, Chinese steel mills have realized in advance Beijing’s call for 20% steel scrap use in steelmaking by 2020.
The consistent growth in scrap consumption was mainly to do with higher availability to legitimate steel mills with the removal of induction furnaces as well as Beijing’s growing emphasis on environment protection, according to him.
Over January-October, steel scrap consumption in crude steel output up 5.1% on year to around 212 kg/tonne, and of the total 829 million tonnes of crude steel output during the period, 176 million tonnes of scrap was utilized, Feng shared the latest statistics from CAMU.
Jin Xionglin, Mysteel’s senior scrap analyst held a similar prediction, expecting China’s scrap consumption to increase to 262 million tonnes by 2020, though steel scrap among China’s blast-furnace steel mills may reduce to 15% from 16% for 2019 due to the costliness of scrap.
The next five to ten years will be the golden period for China’s steel scrap consumption, as China will accumulate 13.25 billion tonnes for steel scrap resources for 2030 or generating 340 million tonnes of scrap annually by then, enabling China’s steel scrap utilization in steelmaking to catch up with the global level, which was at 36% as of 2018.
Higher steel scrap use in steelmaking in the long run, is adhering to Beijing’s call for greener economy and eco-friendliness, as each tonne scrap use, compared with iron ore, will reduce carbon dioxide emission by 1.6 tonnes and other solid waste emission by 4.3 tonnes, he reiterated, adding that China’s use of scrap so far this year has reduced 251 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emission in the first nine months of 2019, Feng shared.
This article has been published under an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.
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