China Energy Outlook 2020 - Flipbook - Page 33
Figure 1-14. Production of Cement, Crude Steel, Ethylene, and Ammonia (1998-2019)
Source: NBS, various years (a).
Globally, China also produced 62% of pig iron and 52% of crude steel in 2019. Similar to the
trend in cement production, crude steel production increased at 14% per year between 1998
and 2013. Between 2013 and 2016, crude steel production decreased -0.2% per year. From
2016 to 2019, crude steel production in China increased again, growing at 7% per year. The
share of net exports dropped slightly during the first half of 2019 compared to the first half of
2018, from 6% to 5.5%. The growth in total steel output during the past two years is largely due
to the increased market price of steel products driving up production after the capacity cuts in
the Chinese steel sector.
Figure 1-15 shows China’s steel imports, exports, total steel production, and net exports as a
share of total steel production since 2009 (International Trade Administration 2019a and
2019b). China’s exports of steel peaked in 2015 when 110 Mt were exported, 13 Mt were
imported, and net exports were 97 Mt, or 12% of China’s total steel production. Since then,
exports of steel have dropped to 67 Mt in 2018 with net exports of 53 Mt that year, just under
6% of China’s total steel production and around 12% of total world steel traded volume that
year (China Customs 2019; World Steel Association, 2019). Net exports for the first half of 2019
are similar to those of the first half of 2018.
Ethylene is one of the most important chemicals and it is the building block for a large number
of chemical products, including plastics, polymers, rubber, fibers, and solvents. Its production in
China grew 10% per year between 1998 and 2013 and then slowed, increasing only 3% per year
on average from 2013 to 2018. By 2019, China’s ethylene production reached 18.4 Mt, or 11%
higher than the annual production in 2018 (NBS, 2020).
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