Resumen de Chinese refractories industry buckles under overcapacity pressure
By product category, compact shaped refractories output stood at 16.56m tonnes, down 4.31% y-o-y; heat preservation and insulation refractory products output was 526,300 tonnes, down 5.56% y-o-y; and production of unshaped refractory products was 10.9m tonnes, down 4.68% y-o-y.
Struggling steel companies have been slow to make payments to refractories suppliers, [Baikuan Liu] said and noted that the Chinese government's plan to eliminate 80m tonnes of steel production - 60m of which will be in Hebei province - needs to be addressed seriously by the refractories industry.
[Dianli Xu] said that in 2014, China's crude steel production reached 823m tonnes, up 0.9% y-o-y, but representing a 6.6 percentage point slowdown in the pace of growth since 2013. Overall steel production in China last year stood at 1.1bn tonnes, meanwhile, a 4.5% increase y-o-y but indicating a 6.9 percentage point drop in growth speed.
