Remote "One Key Steelmaking": "Iron And Steel Aircraft Carrier" China Treasure Wu Set Sail Again

Intern Li Danni, Wuhan

At the beginning of December, the natural gas pipeline between China and Russia was formally put into operation and ventilated. This is currently the largest natural gas pipeline in the world, with the supply of 50% of the highest straight seam pipes available in Baosteel. The total cost of the plate and pigging pipe is exclusively provided by Baosteel.

Bao Wu firmly occupies the leading position of domestic high-end plate, which stems from the relentless pursuit of intelligent manufacturing. Just a few months ago, at the China Bao Wu intelligent manufacturing site meeting, with China's Bao Wu party secretary and chairman Chen Derong pressing the key button in Baoshan base, the steelmaking converter No. 3 outside the 3000 meters officially launched the "remote one click steelmaking" mode, and the whole process automation steel, carbon, silicon, manganese, phosphorus and other steel components were all within the control standard.

The traditional steelmaking process requires many workers such as blowing workers, rocking furnace workers, alloy workers, signalling workers, etc. the working environment is bad, the risk coefficient is high, and the labor intensity is great. China Bao Wu took the lead in exploring and continuing to promote intelligent steelmaking, and master the automatic tapping technology of large 300 tons converter.

From "silly big black thick" to high quality development

In the past, the stereotype of steelmaking was left to be stupid. Today, through intelligent manufacturing and 5G technology, the mouse steelmaking and remote one click steelmaking have been realized. This time it is 3000 meters away from the site. Next time, it is possible to achieve a key steel making distance of 3000 kilometers. Chen Derong said.

Intelligent manufacturing is the key core capability of China's ongoing efforts to build the company. The iron and steel aircraft carrier is trying to create a new round of innovation with wisdom. In 2018, China Bao Wu started to comprehensively promote smart manufacturing and released the smart manufacturing action plan (2018-2020 years) to maintain a high level of R & D investment. In 2018, the R & D investment rate of Bao Wu reached 2.3%, a record high, with a total number of patents totaling 12979, of which 5281 patents were invented, ranking the top among the central enterprises.

Nowadays, China's Bao Wu has nurtured a batch of mature intelligent manufacturing projects. The cold rolling black light plant characterized by unmanned characteristics, on-line monitoring of steel blower fan using 5G technology, hot rolling leveling robot, equipment remote operation and maintenance center, finished product intelligent logistics control center. In the past, the iron and steel factories of "big black and thick" and "smoky fire" are being transformed into technology intensive intelligent representatives.

In addition to the intelligence of steelmaking technology and process, green manufacturing is also a key point China always attaches importance to. In 2019, the Ministry of ecology announced the results of the Tenth China Environmental Prize. Baosteel, a Chinese Baoyu group, was awarded the Tenth China Environmental Prize (enterprise environmental protection category) and became the only enterprise unit selected in the Tenth China Environmental Prize.

According to "three criteria and four modernizations", which is "above standard, superior to urban area and integration into city", it is the concrete path of green development in China. In the source control and terminal management, we should manage waste gas, waste water and solid waste together. Through cleaning, greening, beautification and culture, the green space rate of the factory area has basically reached over thirty percent, and has become a veritable green garden factory.

Technological innovation has also become the driving force for the direction of green development in the industry. In recent years, China has promoted the implementation of a batch of environmental protection projects represented by "coal entering warehouses and mine into the shed" as represented by Bao Wu, upgrading and upgrading a batch of dedusting and water treatment facilities with the improvement of the whole process as the core, and converting a number of initial and demonstrative environmental protection technologies, such as coke oven flue gas treatment and the highest efficiency sintering flue gas purification treatment, into engineering applications.

Becoming the leader of the global steel industry has always been China's vision of Bao Wu. "China Bao Wu is a modern high-tech enterprise", which is Chen Derong's new orientation for enterprises. He said that the future development trend of China's iron and steel industry is to develop vigorously and vigorously. The whole steel industry should develop towards greener, smarter, more excellent and better quality products.

"Our layout adjustment will also better move towards the international market," Chen Derong added. "One belt and one road" has provided great development space and good opportunities for the internationalization of China's iron and steel industry. The industrial foundation of the countries along the border is relatively weak. Therefore, China's iron and steel industry should go out boldly and realize internationalization according to the "one belt and one road" initiative, which may be a trend of the future development of China's iron and steel industry.

In July 2019, fortune China Network released the latest Fortune 500 list. China's Bao Wu ranked 149th in business revenue of 66 billion 300 million US dollars, up 13 from last year, ranking second in the world's steel enterprises.

From "white paper" to "second to none"

In 1949, when the new China was founded, steel output was only 158 thousand tons, less than 1/1000 of world steel output at that time, which was only 2/1000 of the steel output in the United States. "Lack of steel and iron" has become an important problem that seriously restricts overall development.

In March 1952, the Central Finance Committee Party group reported to the Central Committee that the construction of a new iron and steel industrial base in Daye, near Wuhan, is the best plan for the construction of the four sites of Anshan, Benxi, Shijingshan and Daye with annual production capacity of more than 1 million tons of steel. The proposal was quickly approved and listed as one of the Soviet aid projects. In 1954, the Soviet expert group decided to locate the site at Castle Peak in Wuhan.

After nearly 30 years of development, in the early 1978 of reform and opening up, China's steel output accounted for 4% of world steel output, ranking fifth in the world. According to statistics, from 1952 to 1978, the output of China's iron and steel industry increased by an average of 12.9% every year, and its output value increased by 11.8% annually, and the profit and tax increased by 9.67% annually.

It is also the first ray of dawn along with the reform and opening up. Baosteel, which is born with a golden spoon, is officially launched under the approval of the central government. To this end, Deng Xiaoping visited Japan in October of that year to visit the Royal steel plant of Nippon Steel. In December 23rd of that year, on the second day of the closing of the third Plenary Session of the 11th CPC Central Committee, the Sino Japanese joint venture's Baoshan iron and steel construction project officially launched the first pile in Shanghai. Baosteel became China's largest investment and largest scale and full introduction of foreign equipment at that time. At the time of the international economic downturn, the big business has won worldwide attention.

Since then, China's steel industry has begun to explore a shift from resource oriented to market-oriented. The rapid development of the national economy has brought about the exuberant demand for iron and steel materials. Under the attraction of the market, thousands of iron and steel enterprises have invested in this industry, and the scale of iron and steel production has expanded rapidly.

At the same time, the expansion of the number of enterprises has also lowered the degree of industrial concentration. "The degree of industrial concentration is negatively related to the intensity of competition. The decline of industrial concentration means the improvement of competitiveness. Moderate competition is conducive to maintaining vitality, but excessive competition is not conducive to sustainable development of the industry. China's iron and steel enterprises are more dispersed, homogenized competition is fierce, and innovation resultant force is not strong, which is not conducive to China's transformation from a steel power to a steel power. Therefore, we should promote mergers and acquisitions and speed up industrial concentration. " Looking back on the expansion history, Gao Xiangming, President of the China Iron and Steel Industry Association, pointed out that

The continuous rise of iron and steel enterprises has promoted the growth of the total capacity of the industry, but the rapidly expanding capacity is also facing the risk of indigestion. After the financial crisis in 2008, the demand for steel declined, and the oversupply of steel industry began to appear. From 2013 to 2015, China's steel prices began to dive, and iron and steel enterprises suffered large losses.

Time and place must be combined. When the invisible hand of the market appeared to be inadequate, the state made timely decisions on the structural reform of the supply side. Among them, promoting merger and reorganization and resolving excess capacity has become the focus of reform in the supply side of iron and steel industry.

In September 2016, the State Council issued the guiding opinions on promoting the merger and reorganization of steel industry to deal with zombie enterprises. It pointed out that the merger and reorganization of iron and steel industry will take three steps in 2025. The first step is to clear production capacity from 2016 to 2018. At the same time, we will make a demonstration of the next annexation and reorganization. The second step is from 2018 to 2020, and improve the policies of annexation and reorganization; the third step is from 2020 to 2025, and promote the merger and reorganization of iron and steel industry on a large scale.

Against this background, the SASAC issued a notice that it agreed to carry out joint reorganization between Baosteel and WISCO.

In June 26, 2016, Wuhan Iron and Steel shares and Baosteel issued a notice of suspension, announcing that the parent companies of two listed companies, Wuhan Iron and Steel Group and Baoshan Iron and Steel Group, are planning strategic reorganization. At the end of August, the SASAC passed the reorganization plan of Bao Wu and submitted it to the State Council at the beginning of September.

Baosteel Group, which has entered the reorganization process, has been renamed as Baobao iron and Steel Group Co., Ltd., as the parent company after reorganization. In December of the same year, Baobao iron and steel group was unveiled and Baosteel and Wuhan Iron and Steel Co. were formally restructured to become the largest "new aircraft carrier" in China's steel industry. At this point, the enterprises that were born at the two important time points of new China's iron and steel industry have also merged into the tide of the times.

In June 2, 2019, China's Bao Wu also carried out strategic restructuring of Masteel group. Anhui SASAC took the 51% stake in Maanshan Iron and Steel Group to China's treasure Wu without compensation. The representative enterprises of iron and steel industry in different stages of China have completed the merger. The first 100 million tons of iron and steel aircraft carriers were born in China, and the scale was directly related to the world's largest steel giant Arcelor Mittal Steel Co Nv.