Hebei, the largest steel-producing province in China, witnessed an almost 20% y-o-y drop in crude steel output in Jul’21 to 1.8 millon tonnes (mn t), as per data from the country’s National Bureau of Statistics. This is noteworthy considering that the national crude steel output in Jul’21 was 86.79 mn t, a y-o-y decrease of 8.4%.
Hebei’s production drop is in line with the Chinese government measures adopted to curb crude steel output in a bid to meet its emission targets. Since Hebei is the largest steel-making province in China, a 20% drop has pulled down the national average too.
In fact, all the top five steel producing provinces in China have seen a y-o-y drop in production in varying degrees.
Although the second highest steel-producing province, Jiangsu, has seen a marginal y-o-y drop of around 2% to 1.01 mn t and the third highest, Liaoning, by 1% to 0.66 mn t in Jul’21, the fourth highest, Shandong’s, dropped 14% y-o-y to 0.62 mn t. The fifth largest crude steel producer, Shanxi, saw a y-o-y drop of 9% to 0.53 mn t in Jul’21.
Amongst the total 27 provinces, 18 declared a y-o-y, and 22 provinces, a m-o-m drop in production.
Outlook
With the ongoing steel production curbs, the days ahead will only see further drop in output. China plans to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 and the output curbs are part of this long-term strategy.
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