Steel industry structure is optimized

Prefab building is in its infancy in China, and the state vigorously advocates its development. Since 2015, a series of policies and guidelines have been intensively issued. The overall target is that prefab building will account for more than 15% of new buildings in 2020 (more than 20% in key areas to be promoted), and 30% in 2025. After the rapid development of aluminum curtain wall system in recent years, China’s newly built prefabricated building area in 2018 was about 190 million square meters, accounting for 9% of the newly built building area in cities and towns. Compared with the planning target, there is still huge room for improvement. In the list of key construction projects released by various provinces and cities in 2020, prefabricated building/steel structure has become one of the key words. Shandong, Fujian, Henan and other provinces all have related construction projects. Some of the projects have announced production capacity plans, with the capacity of prefabricated steel structure ranging from tens of thousands of tons to hundreds of thousands of tons.

In the construction of Vulcan mountain and Raytheon mountain hospitals this year, prefabricated buildings have shown their strength and efficiency. With the increase of China’s aging level, the construction industry is facing the problem of labor shortage and rising cost. However, prefabricated buildings can improve the production efficiency, lower human demand, and the inherent environmental advantages make it an inevitable development. It also depends on curtain wall building. There are three main types of prefabricated buildings: prefabricated precast concrete structures (PC for short), prefabricated steel structures and prefabricated timber structures, of which the first two types of structures are common. With the rapid development of prefabricated building, the proportion of steel structure application will be improved, which will drive the demand for steel products such as steel plate, round steel pipe and square steel pipe.
The proportion of China’s special steel production is relatively low, and the proportion of medium and high end special steel is even lower, so some imports are still needed. The downstream demand of special steel is concentrated in the high-end fields of automobile, machinery, aerospace, military industry and other industries, as well as glasses greenhouse. In the long run, the high-end manufacturing industry and import substitution will promote the growth of demand for special steel. In the steel production, the proportion of special steel will also increase. Among the key steel construction projects announced by provinces and cities in 2020, there are those with large production capacity.