According to an official from Tangshan Development & Reform Commission that Hebei Iron & Steel Group plans to build up the China largest ship plate production base in Laoting a coastal city of Tangshan with the designed capacity at over 10 million tonne per year.
Hebei Steel aims to launch an independent seaside base to catch the developing opportunity, though Tangshan Steel under Hebei Steel took part in the construction of Caofeidian steel base.
As per report, Hebei Steel plans to set up three projects in Laoting, near Caifeidian. An insider of Hebei Steel said Laoting projects would be part of the Bohai coastal regional steel industry which included Caofeidian steel base too.
According to Hebei provincial development plan on steel industry, the province projects to cut steel capacity from 120 million tonnes per year in 2007 to 80 million tonnes per year by the end of the 12th “Five Year Plan” period and gradually remove its steel capacity to Caofeidian, Jingtang Port and Huanghua Port.
Experts said the competition between steelmakers will become more furious in Bohai coastal region, which already takes in two large scale steel projects in Caofeidian and Bayuquan respectively by Shougang Jingtang Iron & Steel Co Ltd and Anshan Iron & Steel Group. After encouraged by Govs, Mills rush to occupy coastal regions which can provide great advantages in operating steel businesses, through removing or building new steel mills.
However, the unbearable steel overcapacity causes much harder circumstance to these projects. Some projects, like Baosteel Zhanjiang project and Wuhan Steel Fangchenggang project, still on the anvil can’t gain the approval of supervised Government those which already put into production are suffering losses.
Mr Zhao Chunhua vice director of Hebei Development & Reform Commission noted that “It’s hard to say whether Hebei Steel Laoting project will be approved by the Government. In the long run, it’s still possible that the project will see the green light.”
Mr Wu xichun an advisor of CISA noted in an interior meeting said that if China really forbad any new projects in the following three years, steel supply will fall short of demands.
(Sourced from MySteel.net)
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