蝴蝶風暴 全球鋼鐵業的中國因素(2)

Chinese flu

中國感冒了

In the early 2000s, as steel demand in the developed world began to slow, China’s appetite for grand construction projects acted as a ballast for the industry. When the financial crisis hit in 2008, Beijing chose to build its way out of a recession. Cities sprang up across the country, each new apartment block packed with bars of reinforcing steel. China’s consumption of the metal more than doubled in the decade to 2014 to 740m tonnes, while production rose in parallel to account for nearly half the world’s annual output of 1.67bn tonnes.

21世紀初，隨着發達世界對鋼鐵的需求開始放緩，中國對大型建設項目的興趣成爲了這個行業的壓艙石。2008年金融危機爆發後，北京方面選擇了藉助基礎設施建設避免陷入衰退的出路。一座座城市在中國各地拔地而起，每一棟新建公寓大樓都需要不少螺紋鋼。在截至2014年的十年裏，中國的鋼鐵消費量增加了1倍多，至7.4億噸，而產量也隨之上升，增至世界年產量（16.7億噸）的近一半。

But that engine is sputtering. For the first time in three decades, Chinese steel output shrank last year to 875m tonnes as building activity cooled, signalling what many see as the end of an era as Beijing enters a “new normal” of slower, but higher-quality growth.

但中國這臺引擎正在失去動力。隨着建築活動降溫，去年中國的鋼鐵產量出現30年來首次萎縮，降至8.75億噸。在很多人看來，這標誌着一個時代的結束，北京步入了增長更慢、但更有質量的“新常態”。

Over half of China’s major producers were lossmaking in 2015, but rather than close or go bankrupt, these companies, the majority of which are state owned, continue to churn out more metal than the nation needs. Last year alone, China’s exports soared by a fifth to 112m tonnes — greater than the total output of Japan, the world’s second-biggest steel producing nation.

2015年，中國逾半大型鋼鐵生產商陷入虧損，其中多數爲國家所有，這些公司非但沒有關閉或者破產，反而繼續大量生產超出國內需求的鋼材。僅去年一年，中國鋼鐵出口飆升五分之一，至1.12億噸——比世界第二大鋼鐵生產國日本的總產量還要多。

As global steel prices collapsed, bitter complaints were made against China over dumping material below the costs of production, as well as accusations that it subsidises lossmaking and debt-addled zombie companies.

隨着全球鋼鐵價格暴跌，不僅出現了針對中國以低於生產成本的價格傾銷鋼材的抱怨，還有對中國補貼虧損和債務混亂的殭屍企業的指控。

In Europe, steel demand is 25 per cent lower than before the 2008 financial crisis. Despite painful closures and the loss of one in five steel jobs, some analysts say the continent still has excess capacity. When plants are underused, operators lose their ability to set prices and unit costs go up.

在歐洲，鋼鐵需求比2008年金融危機前低25%。儘管歐洲大陸經歷了痛苦的鋼廠倒閉，失去了五分之一的鋼鐵業相關工作崗位，但一些分析師表示，歐洲的鋼鐵產能依然過剩。當鋼廠開工率不足時，運營商失去定價能力，單位成本會上升。

Alessandro Abate, analyst at Berenberg, says: “The future of [European] steel lies in consolidation. If they don’t do it now they should stop complaining about Chinese overcapacity. They need to lower costs and distribute the workload across the most efficient assets.”

貝倫貝格(Berenberg)的分析師亞歷山德羅•阿巴特(Alessandro Abate)說：“（歐洲）鋼鐵的未來在於整合。如果它們現在不這樣做，它們就不應該再抱怨中國的產能過剩。它們需要降低成本，並且將業務量分配到效率最高的資產上。”

Specialist turn

轉型特種鋼材

But closing unneeded steel factories is no easy task, not only because of the large costs of redundancy payouts and cleaning up contaminated land. Emasculating an industry that is a symbol of national strength can spark fierce political opposition.

但是，關閉不需要的鋼鐵廠並非易事，這不僅僅是因爲裁員補償和清理受污染土地的巨大成本。削弱一個象徵着綜合國力的行業，可能會招致激烈的政治反對。

In the likely event that equilibrium is not restored soon, steelmakers — particularly those in developed countries — face an existential question: who can survive — and how?

鑑於均衡狀態很可能不會很快恢復，鋼鐵生產商，尤其是發達國家的那些鋼鐵生產商，面臨一個生死存亡的問題：誰能生存？要怎麼做才能生存？

“In my opinion, the only solution if you want to survive is to focus on high-quality and high-tech steel products. This sounds very simple but it’s in fact very complicated,” says Wolfgang Eder, chief executive of Voestalpine, an Austria-based producer.

“在我看來，如果你想生存下來，唯一的解決辦法是專注於高品質和高技術含量的鋼材產品。這聽起來很簡單，但實際上非常複雜，”奧地利鋼鐵生產商奧鋼聯集團(Voestalpine)首席執行官沃爾夫岡•埃德(Wolfgang Eder)說。

Since emerging from bankruptcy in the 1980s, Voestalpine has become a paragon of premium steelmaking. While rivals bulked up to gain economies of scale, seen in the creation of Corus in 1999 through the combination of British Steel and Hoogovens of the Netherlands, or the merger of Arcelor and Mittal Steel seven years later, it followed a different tack. It concentrated on downstream, or processing, facilities and added engineering capabilities.

上世紀80年代脫離破產保護之後，奧鋼聯變成了高端鍊鋼的典範。競爭對手紛紛擴大生產以實現規模效益，比如1999年英國鋼鐵(British Steel)和荷蘭的Hoogovens合併爲哥魯氏(Corus)，以及7年後安賽樂(Arcelor)和米塔爾鋼鐵(Mittal Steel)合併，而奧鋼聯採取了不同的策略，專注於下游業務，即加工、設施以及附加工程設計能力。

By the turn of the millennium, the company had withdrawn from all commodity steelmaking, says Mr Eder. Today it sells not a single tonne on the spot market. An example of its approach is in railways. As well as tracks, Voestalpine manufactures specialist components such as switches and applications for high-speed rail, in addition to signalling, safety features and offering maintenance.

埃德說，到世紀之交的時候，這家公司已經退出所有普通的鍊鋼業務。今天，奧鋼聯在現貨市場上連一噸鋼鐵都不賣。體現該公司策略的一個例子是鐵路。除了鋼軌外，奧鋼聯還生產高速鐵路的專用組件（如道岔系統）和配套應用，以及信號和安全系統，並提供維護。