In 2023, the overall actual supply of structural steel supply has not changed much, but under the increase of production capacity, the pressure of market competition has further increased, and the demand side has significantly improved compared with 2022, but the pressure brought by high inventory at the beginning of the superposition, the total supply is still greater than the total demand, driving the overall price decline. For 2024, the competitive pressure on the supply side will not decrease, the process of "general improvement" will not change, the market supply or maintain a high level, but affected by the policy and its cyclical changes, the demand side is expected to continue the improvement situation since the second half of the year in 2024, and the price center of gravity is expected to move slightly upward. In 2023, the economic situation at home and abroad is more complex and volatile, although a series of measures to promote consumption in the macro level are frequent, but the impact of real estate, infrastructure investment decline and other factors, the downstream demand performance of the steel market is weak, coupled with rising raw material prices, structural steel prices are in the continuous game of high cost, strong expectations and weak reality, steel prices as a whole show a decline, but from the fourth quarter performance, Demand gradually led to a more obvious rebound in prices.
Price: 2023 structural steel prices fell 12.02% in 2023 structural steel prices rose first and then fell and then rose after a narrow range of shocks, as of December 29, structural steel 45#50mm average annual price of 4166.81 yuan/ton, compared with 2022 average annual price fell 569.54 yuan/ton, a decline of 12.02%. Among them, the highest price in the year appeared in mid-March, the highest price was 4541.67 yuan/ton, the lowest price appeared in early June, the lowest price was 3908.33 yuan/ton, and the difference between high and low price was 633.34 yuan/ton.
From January to mid-March, the structural steel shock rose, mainly due to the stock of some terminals before the Spring Festival, active trading, coupled with macro news support, the market is expected to pick up demand preference. From late March to early June, the price of structural steel fell, the expectation of demand recovery was disappointed, the market focus returned to the fundamentals, and the banking crisis in Europe and the United States dragged down domestic commodity prices, and steel prices fell. From mid-June to the end of October, structural steel runs in a narrow range, and the fluctuation space is within 100 yuan/ton. Rising raw material prices have given cost support, while weak end demand has limited market acceptance of high prices. In November, as high costs and strong macro expectations continued to force, steel prices rose, breaking through the five-month shock range. In December, the weather turned cold, the seasonal off-season demand characteristics appeared, the demand declined, and the high cost and macro expectations did not reduce the support, and the high steel price oscillated.
Supply side: In 2023, China's structural steel production capacity rose at a faster pace, with good development prospects, mainly in the national policy tilt, the real estate market downturn under the rebar demand is weak, while the overall profit of structural steel is better than rebar and other multiple factors. The enthusiasm of steel mills to produce structural steel has been significantly improved, such as Zhou Steel and other enterprises that have been producing rebar before, in the comprehensive measurement of structural steel and rebar cost profit, sales and other aspects of the transformation of the water in new areas. In terms of production capacity elimination, there is 900,000 tons of production capacity of Xiwang Special steel, and the small rod line mixed with rebar steel has withdrawn from the historical stage due to the enterprise's own business reasons, and the current production capacity of the large rod line still exists. Susteel will bid for demolition in November 2022, and sample capacity will be deleted in 2023.
2023 structural steel supply side (production + imports) little change, monitoring data, 2023 structural steel production in 300477 million tons, an increase of 0.79%. Structural steel imports from January to November 2023 are 103,200 tons, and it is estimated that structural steel imports in 2023 will be 112,200 tons, a year-on-year decrease of 69.58%. In 2023, the total supply end of structural steel (production + imports) was 30.159,900 tons, a decrease of 0.07% from the previous quarter. On the one hand, the loss of structural steel production in 2023 has increased, and the production enthusiasm of enterprises has declined, but due to the impact of the conversion of rebar production capacity, the output of structural steel has increased slightly; On the other hand, affected by the weakening of domestic demand, structural steel imports have declined significantly, but due to the small import base in recent years, the overall import reduction is basically the same as the increase in domestic production. From the perspective of inventory structure, in 2023, the inventory of structural steel enterprises shows a trend of first falling, then rising and then falling, and the social inventory of traders shows a trend of first rising and then falling. As of December 29, 2023, the total inventory of China's 29 structural steel production enterprises monitored by the data was 812,100 tons, an increase of 130,900 tons from the end of December 2022, an increase of 19.22%, and the year's high was 994,900 tons in late January. In terms of social inventory statistics, the total inventory of 66 trading enterprises in Shandong, Hebei and Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions was 948,600 tons, down 80,900 tons from the end of December 2022, a decrease of 7.86%, and the peak of the year was 1.269,000 tons in early February.
From the perspective of the change of trend, the peak of enterprise inventory over the years appeared in February, generally after the Spring Festival inventory accumulated to a certain level, the first wave of market after 2-April, steel mill inventory gradually transferred to social inventory, steel mill inventory declined. In 2023, due to the Spring Festival holiday factor, from late January to the first half of February, the normal output of most steel mills, steel mill inventory is in continuous accumulation, and with the phased recovery of demand in the first quarter, steel mill inventory has declined. However, in the second quarter, downstream demand weakened, steel traders stock intention declined, steel mill inventory again appeared cumulative pressure, after June steel mill inventory has been at a historical high level of slight fluctuations. The decline in social inventory mainly lies in the weak performance of downstream demand, terminal enterprises just need to buy mainly, most traders lack confidence in the future market, and the intention to stock up is low. However, from the past five years of social inventory data, the overall social inventory in 2023 is still at a moderate level. From the perspective of supply trend, based on the increasing production capacity of production enterprises, it is expected that the structural steel production will show an increasing trend in 2024, and it is expected that the structural steel production will reach 32.29 million tons in 2024, an increase of 7.46% from the output in 2023. Since the import dependence of structural steel is very low, the increase in production can represent the change in market supply, and the supply of structural steel will increase in 2024, and the pressure brought by the increase in supply may increase for steel prices.
