China's steel peril may be oversupply
Rising exports, lower prices could have global effect
By Patrick Barta and Paul Glader
The Wall Street Journal
January 3, 2005
For much of the past two years, China has threatened to foster a world steel shortage with its prodigious appetite for imports of the metal. Now the country has become a net exporter, its domestic demand is slowing and steelmaking capacity is up around the world, sparking concern over global oversupply and tougher times for the industry in the years ahead.
Behind China's shift is a sharp slowdown in the growth of steel consumption at home combined with continued increases in production. As Beijing has worked to cool an overheated economy, the growth in domestic demand for steel recently has been rising only about 5 percent a month compared with year-earlier periods, after average monthly increases of 26 percent in 2002, 2003 and early 2004, according to UBS AG.
Meanwhile, UBS estimates that Chinese steel production will climb 22 percent this year to 268 million tons and grow a further 14 percent next year to 305 million tons. In November, China reported net exports of more than one million metric tons of steel, more than double October's level and a reversal from November 2003, when it was a net importer of nearly three million tons.
China's emergence as a net steel exporter and rising capacity elsewhere highlights how quickly global commodity flows can shift directions. It also raises the question of whether China could as quickly reverse the trend and again squeeze global steel supplies. China in recent years has added so much new production of some raw materials, such as coal and aluminum, that even minor shifts in its economy could force it to dump unneeded supply on to the global marketplace, potentially sending prices down as quickly as they have gone up.
Lower steel prices could be a boon to manufacturers, builders and consumers worldwide, helping to reduce costs in the plant and prices at the cash register. The effect on steelmakers is less rosy, especially in the United States. Although the American steel industry is in better shape, after a wave of bankruptcies and consolidation, to cope with oversupply, the United States would be at a big disadvantage against steelmakers in lower-cost countries. In addition to China, production in lower-cost regions such as India and Eastern Europe has been surging in recent years. And when the dollar's weakness reverses, imports will look more attractive to U.S. customers.
For now, analysts and executives see a clear movement toward rising capacity in China and worldwide, though they disagree on how soon large amounts of new steel will reach the market and how much of a price squeeze global producers face.
Just a few years ago, the steel industry was slogging through a decades-long downturn, caused in part by overcapacity. That changed in 2003 and 2004, as manufacturing picked up worldwide, but especially in China, where construction projects far exceeded expectations. A global squeeze on steel supplies this year led to panic buying that caused steel prices to double and triggered shortages of steel-making raw materials such as iron ore, coking coal and scrap steel.
Now, many governments are using subsidies, loan guarantees and other tools to promote more steel production to capitalize on the increased demand in China and elsewhere. The North American Steel Trade Committee is worried that some 250 million metric tons of new steel capacity are on track to be added in the next five years in a global market that produces about one billion tons annually.
China now exports large amounts of lower-quality steel, of the type used in construction. Supplies of higher-quality steel, of the kind used to make cars and trucks, remain tight - Nissan Motor Co. and Suzuki Motor Corp. both had to temporarily halt production when they couldn't find enough steel in recent weeks. But China has been ramping up its capacity to make more high-quality steel as well.
Excess Chinese steel might not dent world prices right away. But rising Chinese exports would almost certainly affect other markets eventually, stoking competition as steel producers that had sold to China vie for sales elsewhere.
Some steel users say they are already seeing the impact of greater production and slowing demand in Asia. Among them is Pan Australian Resources Ltd., a mining concern based in Brisbane, Australia, that is building a $15 million gold-processing facility in northern Laos. Steel products account for as much as 10 percent of the facility's cost.
When Pan Australian priced the project this summer, suppliers appeared to be padding their estimates in the expectation that steel costs would continue to rise. But now that it is taking delivery of the steel, the company is finding prices are more than 10 percent below estimates.
"It looks like their order books have thinned out, so they need to be more competitive," says Joe Walsh, a Pan Australian spokesman.
And more capacity is on the way. Despite its announced intention to rein in excess steel investment earlier this year, the Chinese government recently approved a $2.5 billion plant expansion for Maanshan Iron & Steel Co., the country's fifth-largest steel producer, to make more steel for cars and home appliances. It also approved a $2 billion expansion for stainless-steel maker Taiyuan Iron & Steel.
State-run media have reported that China's largest steelmaker, Baosteel Group, is considering a $10 billion expansion to build a 10-million-ton-a-year plant in Guangdong province, pending government approval. Baosteel officials declined to comment on the plan. Baosteel has started construction on a stainless-steel plant in Guangdong that would be the biggest stainless-steel processing and distribution center in China when finished.
"It doesn't take too much imagination to look at what's happening in China and say that this is a really serious issue," says Peter Hickson, a steel analyst at UBS in London, who thinks steel prices could fall nearly $200 a ton in 2005. The U.S. industry expects prices for cold-rolled steel, a type commonly used in everything from dishwashers to automobiles, to be about $800 a ton in early 2005. Hickson's bank recently downgraded the global steel sector to "neutral" from "buy," in large part because of worries over China.
Still, some analysts contend that concerns about a steel overhang are premature. Many of the new expansions won't be completed for a long time, and some might not happen at all if steel prices drop and supplies of raw materials remain tight.
"I think there is a little too much concern about announced new capacity," says Dan DiMicco, chief executive officer of Charlotte, N.C.-based Nucor Corp. "You can build steel mills, but you can only run them if you have raw materials."
Kim Soo Jung, a spokeswoman for Posco, the large South Korean steelmaker, says: "We can't say we're not concerned about the increased production volume in China. If they don't stop producing [so much], that will cause overcapacity."
Even so, Posco is considering its own expansions, including a possible $8.4 billion joint venture with Australia's BHP Billiton to build a steel-slab plant in India with capacity for 10 million tons a year. As recently as 2001, Kim says, Posco was the world's biggest producer of steel in terms of volume, but it has lost that status after other steelmakers expanded through a series of mergers. "If we want to continue to be a leader in the industry, we need to expand our capacity," she says.
Chinese officials emphasize that their latest expansions will be aimed at serving the high-grade steel market rather than users of lower-grade construction steel. Wang Xiaoguang, head of the economic operation and development research department at China's State Development and Reform Commission, predicts China's steel output will only increase 10 percent to 15 percent next year, compared with more than 20 percent in recent years.
The United States, for its part, remains a net importer of steel, taking in about 30 million of the 130 million tons of steel it consumes each year. A few companies, such as Nucor and Fort Wayne, Ind.-based Steel Dynamics Inc., have expanded existing capacity this year for certain types of steel. But that additional production roughly offsets steel-making capacity that disappeared from the United States between 2000 and 2003, when almost 40 companies declared bankruptcy.
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