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| Steel 钢铁业 An inferno of unprofitability 活在无利润的地狱中 The world’s overcapacity in steelmaking is getting worse, and profits are evaporating 全球钢铁产能越发过剩，利润人间蒸发 Jul 6th 2013 |From the print edition THE importance of steel is in no doubt. It is the material from which much of the modern world is made, from skyscrapers to washing machines. Governments everywhere regard a strong steelmaking business as a sign of economic virility, and thus hover anxiously over their domestic producers. A French minister recently threatened to nationalise ArcelorMittal’s Florange plant if it pursued plans to cut jobs and close two blast furnaces. Despite a weak world economy, global production of steel rose by 1.2% last year to a record 1.55 billion tonnes. 钢铁的重要性是毋庸置疑的，从摩天大楼到洗碗机，钢铁已经成为现代社会不可或缺的材料。因此，各国ZF把强大的钢铁业视为经济活力的风向标，但同时也加深了各国钢铁制造商的忧虑。最近，法国工业部长施压，假若阿塞洛米塔尔集团（ArcelorMittal）要关闭其在法国东部弗洛郎日（Florange）的钢铁厂的两座高炉并裁员，法国将国有化该钢铁厂。尽管世界经济仍处于低迷状态，但去年全球的钢铁产量却上升了1.2%，达历史新高15.5亿吨。 Yet importance does not always translate into financial success. Steelmaking scrapes by on microscopic margins that make even airlines look like paragons of profitability. This is most apparent in Europe, whose steelmakers are the most beleaguered. Yet China, where the industry is booming—it has enjoyed almost all of the global production growth in the past decade—faces many of the same problems. 钢铁是很重要，但重要并不代表有高收益。钢铁厂靠着微薄得要用放大镜才看到的利润过日子，使得航空业瞬间成为了盈利模范生。欧洲的情况最为突出，在欧洲，钢铁厂是见报率最高的行业。然而在中国，钢铁厂却蒸蒸日上——过去十年间，中国的钢铁厂度过了全球钢铁业增长的美好春天，但同时，也同样面临着许多问题。 The most pressing concern is an old one: overcapacity. In Europe especially, the drive to build lots of vast steelworks in the post-war reconstruction effort continued into the booming 1960s, only for demand to hit a wall in the oil shocks of the 1970s. Too little was done to adjust capacity to the meagre growth rates that followed. The financial crisis delivered the latest blow. Around half of steel output is used in construction, an industry that took a heavy battering. Steel consumption in Europe, at around 145m tonnes in 2012, is nearly 30% below its pre-crisis level and demand is still falling. 最大的一个问题还是那个陈年旧患——产能过剩。特别在欧洲，战后重建激发了钢铁的强劲需求，使得钢铁业在六十年代依然蓬勃发展，钢铁需求仅在七十年代的石油危机中遭遇刹车，随后，能调整钢铁供应与需求的力量少之又少，一直到最近爆发的金融危机，才稍微另这部快速列车减速。钢铁总产量中有近一半用于建筑业，但建筑业已遍体鳞伤。2012年，欧洲的钢铁消耗量大概为1.45亿吨，比次贷危机发生前下降了30%，而且需求依然走低。 A declining domestic market is far from Europe’s only ill. Labour costs are sky-high (only Japan’s are greater). Feisty unions and fussy governments make closing steel plants a difficult, expensive and lengthy process. And energy, two-fifths of steelmakers’ operating costs, is pricey. Wolfgang Eder, president of Eurofer, a steel-industry body, and boss of Voestalpine, Austria’s biggest steelmaker, reckons that the continent’s unused capacity is 50m tonnes. 欧洲钢铁业面临的问题不仅仅是萎缩的国内市场，高企的劳动力成本也是其致命的因素之一，欧洲的劳动力成本紧随日本，位居世界第二。关闭低效益的钢铁厂有两大阻力——不好惹的工会以及繁琐的ZF机制，因此，要关闭一家钢铁厂，意味着漫长的程序和高昂的赔偿费用。而且，能源消耗占了钢铁厂五分之二的运营成本，是一笔不少的费用。欧洲钢铁产业同盟（Eurofer）主席、奥地利最大的钢铁企业（Voestalpine）首席执行官沃尔夫冈埃德尔（Wolfgang Eder）预测，欧洲的钢铁过剩将达5千万吨。 American steelmakers, though they are struggling to compete with Latin American rivals, have it a bit better. Signs that the economy is recovering, cheap energy from shale gas and a resurgent motor industry are all bringing good cheer to steel firms. Jefferies, a bank, reckons America’s steel consumption will grow by 2.8% this year. 虽然美国的钢铁业与其强大的竞争对手拉美钢铁业艰苦搏斗，但日子过得还算不错。种种迹象显示美国的经济正在复苏，鉴于开发页岩气所获得的廉价能源以及汽车行业的咸鱼翻生，极大地提振了美国钢铁业。美国杰富瑞投资银行（Jefferies）预测，今年美国的钢铁消耗量将增长2.8%。 In Europe, despite some efforts to manage capacity by idling facilities, there is little chance of the big closures required. No firm wants to be first to shut plants and let competitors reap the benefit. And deals struck when times were good still haunt steelmakers. ArcelorMittal, which became the world’s biggest steelmaker in a huge merger in 2006, agreed to maintain jobs and production to persuade European governments to wave the deal through. Now it will be a struggle to break these promises. 回到欧洲，尽管欧洲已做了一番努力让低效的钢厂停止生产，但要真正大动作关闭钢厂，却很难实现。没有钢厂愿意成为第一家关门的企业，任由其他的竞争者瓜分收益。在钢铁业全盛时期所订下的项目，现在依然牵动着钢厂的每根神经。阿塞洛米塔尔钢铁集团（ArcelorMittal）在2006年通过一宗大收购后跃升为全球最大的钢铁制造商，当时，阿塞洛米塔尔钢铁集团向欧洲ZF保证集团的就业和钢铁产量，才得以说服欧洲通过这起并购案。现在，要违反这些承诺，可不是一件容易的事。 Adding to the pressure on steelmakers’ profitability is China’s growing capacity, which is denting steel prices around the world. After a decade of rapid expansion, Chinese firms are now responsible for half of global production. Although the government seems determined to cover the entire country with steel and concrete in its drive for growth, the steelmakers have expanded so rapidly that they now suffer from massive overcapacity. Yet more is being added: Jefferies reckons that another 105m tonnes of new capacity is under construction or planned. 中国不断上升的钢铁产能给全球钢铁制造商的盈利带来压力，并且不断压低世界钢铁价格。中国钢铁业经过十几年的快速扩张，其总产量占了世界钢铁产量的一半。虽然中国ZF看似已下定决心把基建（钢铁和水泥）作为拉动国家经济增长的引擎，但钢铁制造商无限制的扩张让钢铁行业跳进了产能严重过剩的困局，而且，局面仍进一步恶化，据美国杰富瑞投资银行预测，已计划生产或正在生产的钢铁量达1.05亿吨。 China’s stated aim of reining back steelmakers and consolidating state-run firms has happened “mostly on paper”, according to Philipp Englin of World Steel Dynamics, a consultancy. The central government wants cheap steel, so it is unwilling to take radical steps to curtail overcapacity. Meanwhile local governments are encouraging more steel mills to set up shop. They are a vital source of direct and indirect employment, and tax revenues. To these enterprises, profits are unimportant. 美国咨询机构世界钢铁动态（World Steel Dynamics）菲利普恩格林（Philipp Englin）说道，虽然中国制定了让钢铁业降温和整合国有钢铁厂的目标，但实际上都是“纸上谈兵”。中央ZF不希望看到钢铁的价格上升，所以是不会采取激进的措施来解决产能过剩的问题。同时，地方ZF鼓励建立更多的钢铁厂，诱因之一是直接或间接的拉动就业，以及增加财政收入。对于这样的企业而言，利润是其次的。 Since China itself will have little need for this unprofitable steel, it will inevitably add to the country’s exports, further depressing world prices. Chinese exports are likely to be 30m-50m tonnes in each of the next few years—a small share of the country’s total production of almost 750m tonnes, but an amount that now exceeds the tonnage sold abroad by longer-established exporters such as Japan, South Korea, Ukraine and Russia. 由于中国本身消耗不了这么多的钢材，因此，只好寻求出口，这进一步压低了世界钢铁价格。中国的钢材出口量大概为每年3千万至5千万吨，相比中国国内近7.5亿吨的钢铁产量，的确是冰山一角，但是，中国的钢铁出口量已超过一直是钢铁出口国的日本、韩国、乌克兰和俄罗斯。 The expansion of Chinese steelmaking has pushed up the cost of the industry’s main raw material, iron ore, squeezing margins further (see chart,). The supply of ore is dominated by four big mining firms, which supply 70% of all the ore traded by sea around the world. Until 2010 ore prices were fixed in annual negotiations between big steelmakers and the four miners. Now the steelmakers have to pay at, or close to, spot-market prices, and these have proved volatile. The futures market is still underdeveloped, with puny volumes and thin liquidity, so hedging is hard. This has made the struggle for profits only more arduous. 中国钢铁业的扩张刺激了钢铁原材料——铁矿石的价格，原材料成本的提高挤压了利润的空间。全球有四家大型矿业主宰着铁矿石市场，通过海运的铁矿石交易量占了全球的70%。到2010年，铁矿石的价格在大型钢铁企业与这四家矿业的谈判中定了下来，目前已证实了钢铁厂以接近现货市场的价格购买铁矿石。铁矿石的期货市场仍不成气候，难以进行风险对冲，最终使得钢铁厂更难扭亏为盈。 Iron ore is a sellers’ market but steelmaking, since there has been little global consolidation, is a buyers’ one. ArcelorMittal, way out in front of any rival, has only 6% of the world market, and 60 firms produce 5m tonnes or more, says Nicholas Walters of the World Steel Association. Buyers, such as carmakers, are bigger and more powerful, and thus can negotiate hard. These pressures have made the steel industry a mere “conversion business”, making wafer-thin profits, at best, by transforming ore into metal, laments Colin Hamilton of Macquarie, a bank. 世界钢铁协会发言人华特斯（Nicholas Walters）表示，由于钢铁制造业缺乏全球整合，造成了铁矿石是卖方市场，而钢材却是买方市场的怪状。纵然阿塞洛米塔尔钢铁集团在众多对手中脱颖而出，成为世界上最大的钢铁制造集团，但也只是占世界钢铁市场的6%而已，而同时有60家钢铁企业制造5百万吨以上的钢铁。以汽车行业为例，由于大型汽车制造商财大气粗，因此能在商业谈判上压低供应商的价格。麦格理银行（Macquarie）的商品分析师科林汉密斯顿（Colin Hamilton）叹息道，钢铁制造商面对的种种压力使得钢铁业成为纯粹的“中转站”——把铁矿石转化为钢铁，赚取极其微薄的血汗钱。 China’s continuing economic growth offers the prospect of its excess capacity eventually being used up, if the central government can somehow restrain local authorities’ zeal for new plants. Europe’s outlook is gloomier. Its firms face an unwelcome choice between abrupt closures and death by a thousand cuts. Although the world still needs plenty of steel it doesn’t need as much as steelmakers are able to supply. 假如中国中央ZF真的能够抑制地方ZF建立新的钢铁厂势头，那么中国持续的经济增长也许会最终消耗掉所有过剩的钢材。中国的问题相对来说比较容易解决，但欧洲的前景就不容乐观了。欧洲钢铁业面临的是果断关闭效益差的钢厂——一个十分不受欢迎的决定以及上千人的失业问题。诚然，世界依然需要足够的钢材供应以满足各行业的运作，但，并非多多益善。 From the print edition: Business |
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