According to the nationwide galvanized coil production capacity and production line survey report which was recently published by a domestic organization, up till early July 2013,domestic galvanizing manufacturers have a total of 305 galvanized sheet production lines, the designed capacity totals 66,520,000 t/a. It is worth noting that in the galvanized coil sector,the market share of China’s private steel plants for a certain period is higher than that of stateowned large to medium sized steel plants, data from this survey report also proved this point.

According to relevant data, of the abovementioned 305 production lines, only 57 lines can guarantee self supply of raw materials,which involve 14.38 million tonnes of capacity.The owners of these production capacity’s production lines are usually large to medium sized steel plants with cold rolled coil (including hard full hard coil)or hot rolled coil base material production ability, in terms of production process, these steel plants are generally “Long Work Flow” steel plants equipped with blast furnace and rotary furnace.

The remaining 248 production lines need base materials through external purchase, which involves production capacity of 52.14 million tonnes, this part of the capacity mainly comes from private steel plants, in other words, in the current galvanized coil market, the capacity and production lines of private steel plants account for a high percentage.

However, the report also pointed out that judging from the classification of existing galvanized coil production lines, in terms of thickness and width, most domestic production lines are manufacturing nearly identical products,there is rather serious homogeneous competition in the market.

Among the above-mentioned 305 galvanized coil production lines, only 12 production lines can produce high grade products; in terms of product special width, only 16 production lines can produce galvanized products in special width; in which 11 production lines can produce both high-grade products and special products.

Yong Nanchuan, chief editor of this report,pointed out that at present the surplus of galvanized coil capacity is very serious, in comparison with total capacity utilization rate, in 2012 the capacity utilization rate is 53%, it is expected that in 2013 the capacity utilization rate will be maintained at around 50%.

Furthermore, the report also shows that the region which has the largest number of galvanized coil production lines is East China, where there are a total of 168 galvanizing production lines, whose percentage reaches 55%; it is followed by North China, where there are 49 production lines, accounting for 16%; there are 37 production lines in Central South China, accounting for 12%; there are 20 production lines in South China, accounting for 7%; Northeast and Southwest China has 15 and 11 lines respectively; Northwest China has 5 production lines.

Survey data of the above report mainly refer to hot (dipped)galvanizing, which refers to steel products manufactured after continuous hot dipped galvanizing process by using cold rolled coil (including full hard coil)or hot rolled coil as base plate. Its production capacity and output account for 5-6% of the total steel product capacity and output, products are mainly used in building, electric household appliances, automobile, container, transport and real estate fields, especially steel structure building, automobile manufacture, and steel silo manufacture sectors.

In the broad sense, galvanized coil also includes electro-galvanized coil; according to the report published by this organization in early 2013, by the end of 2012, China has nearly 20 electro-galvanizing production lines, the designed production capacity is above 3 million tones. However, due to the substitution effect of other product varieties and the impact of self production process, since November 2010 when Wuhan Iron & Steel launched a 300,000 t/a electro-galvanizing production line till the end of 2012, there is no newly added electrogalvanizing production capacity or production lines in China.