Domestic Tool & Die Steel Market Operational Situation

According to market research, the market price of tool and die steel in the Shanghai market remains stable. The H13 furnace forging materials of different steel mills have different pricing, traders generally sell, shipping is not much, stocks are reduced, and sales pressure is not great.

The market for tool and die steel in Wuxi and Suzhou in East China is also relatively stable and the price is stable. For example, the H13 forging material electroslag price in the Wuxi market is 19,400 yuan/ton, the H13 furnace material price is 19,500 yuan/ton, and the electroslag rolling material price is 23,100 yuan/ton. The market price of tool and die steel in the Suzhou area has stabilized and the market transactions have been general. High-speed tool steel W6 rolling materials offer 58,000 yuan / ton, and some offer 57,500 yuan / ton; Cr12MoV plate price 17,050 yuan / ton, D2 board offer 25,000 yuan / ton, P20M offer 10,000 yuan / ton.

The market prices of tool and die steels in South China, Southwest China, and the South continue to be stable. The prices of individual materials have been slightly shaken. The demand for downstream terminals has not yet been significantly released. Market trade activity is not high, and traders with large inventory pressure are willing to ship. Strong; steel trade companies to reduce the pressure on funds, optimize the inventory structure, and thus inventory continues to decline, the lack of specifications of the local material has increased, thereby curbing the price decline.

The operators believe that the domestic market for tool and die steel has been stabilizing in the near future. It seems that there has been no significant improvement, and it is not so good. The signs that prices have not yet recovered are mainly reflected in the following aspects:

First, the effective demand of downstream terminals did not increase significantly, and the manufacturing sector pushed down sales, and lacked the motivation to support the rise of the tool and die steel market. Recently, machinery manufacturing industry, hardware and tool manufacturing industry, hardware automotive mold industry, shipbuilding industry, electronics, plastic products industry, etc., these industries consume steel, tooling, production, sales, funds, imports, etc. The growth rate was slow, and the increase slowed down. The demand intensity for the tool steel was weakened. On the whole, the domestic manufacturing industry has a low degree of economic growth and the demand is shrinking. According to statistics, in April of this year, 29 major excavator manufacturers nationwide sold 16,257 excavators, a decrease of 25.30% compared to the previous quarter. In the first quarter, the performance of domestic construction machinery generally declined, core product sales were poor, excavators, crawler cranes, etc. , there has been a decline in sales. Taking Xugong Machinery as an example, the sales volume of 1251 units for truck cranes was reduced by 48% year-on-year while the sales volume of crawler cranes was 44 units, a year-on-year decrease of 8.33%. The operating revenue of Chinese equipment manufacturers fell for the first time in ten years. The shipbuilding industry is sluggish. In the past, China's largest shipbuilding province, Jiangsu, China, the shipbuilding situation is also a matter of life and death: According to the data of the Economic and Information Technology Commission of Jiangsu Province on May 9, the first quarter of this year, there were 66 backbone shipbuilding companies. Forty-four enterprises did not receive new orders, and 30% of shipbuilding companies suffered losses. The increase in production and sales of the automotive industry fell. According to data from the China Automobile Association, in April, passenger cars sold a total of 1,441,400 vehicles, a 590.9% decrease from the previous quarter, and 571,200 Chinese branded passenger cars sold, a 17% decrease from the previous quarter. Chinese brands accounted for sales of passenger cars. Compared with the previous month, 39.6% fell 3.8 percentage points from the previous month and 1.1% from the same period last year. This also means that the market share of Chinese brands has fallen. As the growth of production and sales in the manufacturing industry slowed down or even declined, the demand for tool and die steel decreased accordingly, and some end users pushed sales to a significantly lower level. According to sales feedback from some steel traders, only a few customers pushed sales volume. Ton, some customers only buy one, one, usually bought now, not stocked.

Second, steel traders insisted on low inventory and zero inventory to ease financial pressure and the demand in the mid-end has shrunk. Nowadays, many trading companies engaged in special steel such as tool and die steel are generally faced with financial pressure, coupled with sluggish sales and inverted prices. All of them are optimizing the inventory structure and reducing the occupation of inventory funds. Some steel trade companies take orders for sales. According to customers' orders, they order from steel mills, and no orders are not purchased. Some merchants directly allow customers to take delivery from steel mills. Therefore, the next batch of small and medium-sized steel trade enterprises have the stock of tool and mold steel stocks. The amount is very small, the phenomenon of lack of goods or lack of specifications on the market is more obvious, even if some large steel trading companies, inventory has also been reduced, generally adhere to the level of 800-1000 tons, only a few tens of tons. In addition, the market trading is light, traders will have strong willingness to go to inventory, and some return funds, moderate price reductions, such as in Chongqing, Chengdu and other places of shrinking demand for carbon tool steel, businesses will cut sales prices 200-300 yuan / Ton, but the rest of the mold steel prices held steady.

Third, the market for tool and die steel raw materials has fluctuate, which has affected the interest rate of the tool steel production. Recently, except for iron ore, coke, scrap, and other raw materials used in metallurgical tool steels, prices of ferro-molybdenum, vanadium-iron, ferro-tungsten, and other major alloys have fluctuated, and prices have risen and fell. The ferromolybdenum market is stable and the price is stable. Molybdenum and iron produced in the northeast (Mo60 ex-factory price is about 104,000 yuan/ton). With the recent loosening of molybdenum concentrate prices, the market watching atmosphere is gradually becoming stronger. Ferro vanadium (V50 ex-factory price rises by 2,500 yuan/year). t, 82,500 yuan / ton, ferrotitane (W70 ex-factory price rose 2,000 yuan / ton, about 180,000 yuan / ton or so. Tungsten concentrate market price is high, the market supply is tight, tungsten black concentrate in Jiangxi and Hunan (WO365% The price is 127,000-128,000 yuan/ton.The price of international ferro-tungsten market continues to rise.The price of European ferro-tungsten market is between US$46-47/kg tungsten.Although the price of raw materials has been shaken, the interest pressure on tool and die steel production is still not small. The factory's factory price has a limited downside.

Judging from these factors mentioned above, the favorable side of the tool and die steel market is also beneficial to the empty side. The game between the two factors has led to the current stable overall operation of the domestic tool and die steel market. The price is mainly consolidating and will not fluctuate greatly. shake.

According to the market research conducted by some operators, the demand for the future mold steel market will improve, and the downstream industry will release the demand for tool steel. Driven by the strong demand for manufacturing, the state-owned mold market has achieved rapid development, and the sales volume of the state-owned mold market has been among the highest in the world. The Twelfth Five-Year Plan for the mold industry pointed out that industries such as rail transportation, aerospace, new energy, medical equipment, and building materials will bring a huge market for molds. Many of these are key national projects. They all require a large number of molds to support them. Many of these molds need new materials, forming techniques, and mold structures. Some are even brand new mold products. This is exactly what the industry is developing. New growth point.

The mold steel market needed by the automotive industry is huge. The hardware mold is the basic process equipment of the automobile industry. More than 90% of parts and components in automobile production rely on mold forming. About 1500 sets of molds are needed to make an ordinary car, and about 1,000 sets of stamping dies are used. In the development of new models, 90% of the workload is based on the changes in the body profile of the new vehicle development costs, about 60% for the body and stamping process and equipment development. About 40% of the vehicle manufacturing interest is the cost of the body stampings and their assembly.

This year, the production and sales of automobiles will continue to grow. On May 9, the data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers showed that in April, the production and sales volume of China's autos reached 1,899,400 and 1,841,700, respectively, which was a significant increase from the same period of last year. In January-April, the production and sales of China National Automobiles completed 7,296,500 vehicles and 7,266,200 vehicles respectively, which represented an increase of 13.4% and 13.2% year-on-year respectively. China Automotive Market Research Institute gave a speech on the China Automobile Market Index, and in 2012 China's auto production and sales exceeded 19 million vehicles, 2013 The year is expected to reach 20,500,000 vehicles. Therefore, the demand for mold steel in the automotive industry will continue to grow.

In addition, the production and sales of the machinery industry this year is better than last year. According to analysis by industry insiders, the growth rate of the machinery industry in 2013 is expected to be slightly higher than that of the previous year. The growth rate of production and sales is expected to be around 12%; the increase in profit is expected to be around 8%; the increase in imports is expected to be around 8%, and the above forecast leaves a certain margin The actual increase will be slightly higher. The demand for mold steel in the machinery industry is also great, and the market for the mold steel in the later period is promising.

According to industry experts, the demand for high-strength die steels has grown significantly. High-strength steels have excellent characteristics in terms of yield ratio, strain hardening characteristics, strain distribution capability, and collision energy absorption, and the use of automobiles has increased from time to time. At present, the high-strength steels used in automobile stampings include paint-hardened steel (BH steel), dual phase steel (DP steel), phase change induced plasticity steel (PIP steel), and the like. International Ultralight Body Project (ULSA B is expected to introduce advanced concept models in 2010 (97% of ULSA BA VC materials are high-strength steels, and the proportion of advanced high-strength steel plate materials will exceed 60%, of which the proportion of duplex steels) Will account for 74% of steel plates for vehicles.

The market demand for plastic mold steel will also show a growth trend. The plastics industry in the PRC is developing rapidly. Plastic products are widely used in agriculture, machinery, chemicals, construction, toys, daily necessities, automobiles, lamps, and household appliances. Large demand and quality requirements High, with the corresponding rapid increase in the demand for plastic mold steel, the use of steel performance, process performance has also put forward higher requirements.

The metal mold industry has a strong demand for mold steel, and proposes to continuously improve the quality of the metal mold steel, increase the variety specifications, billet production, and quality; research and application of new mold steel, a wide range of new mold steel, space is still very large Moreover, some new steel grades need to be improved. At present, the output of domestic mold steel is relatively large, and it ranks in the forefront of the world. The output of mold steel accounts for about 80% of the alloy tool steel. However, because the quality is not up to standard, the domestic mold steel can not meet the demand. Every year, China's mold industry still imports a large number of mold steel from abroad, and it is estimated that about 80,000 tons, especially the high-grade mold and export mold information almost all rely on imports, and Import prices are several times to more than ten times higher than similar domestic products.

The operator believes that it is precisely because of the huge domestic mold market, strong demand for tool and die steel, so the domestic market for tool and die steel has broad prospects, and the support price has stabilized and strengthened.