OREANDA-NEWS. April 28, 2011. This year, Ningbo Steel Co.,Ltd. adheres to "low cost & high efficiency" business strategy, seizes market opportunities, conducts heavy volume production. At the same time, it successfully implements strategic purchasing and further expands new product market share, gaining more than 200 million yuan of benefits in 3 months, surpassing the target. Among them, the hot rolling products reached 406,000 tons in March, hitting record level. Key economic and technical indicators such as blast furnace utilization coefficient are significantly optimized, reported the press-centre of Baosteel.

In the fourth quarter of last year, to support the local 11th five year emission reduction plan, Ningbo Steel decided to shutdown No. 1 blast furnace and implemented single line production. Faced with such uncontrollable factors, Ningbo Steel made preparations for future, and, according to the prediction of this year's first quarter market conditions, put forward the technological transformation and maintenance project of this year so as to ensure that this year's equipment performance is in its best form and lay a good foundation for production capacity enlargement. In February, Ningbo Steel  No. 2 blast furnace coefficient reached 2.575, hitting the highest record. Meanwhile, steel material consumption also hit a new low point.

This year, on the basis of ensuring the fuel supply, Ningbo Steel adopts "long term cooperation, enriching storage, structural adjustment" as leading idea of procurement, keeps track of changes in market prices and adopts strategic purchasing. Procurement of iron ore and other bulk raw material fuel cost is optimized, manufacturing costs per tonne of steel is reduced, and more than 50 million yuan of market efficiency is achieved. In field cost control, Ningbo Steel continues with "daily clearance" target cost management, promotes core post efficient operation indicators and reduces field cost. In the first quarter, through rationalization proposals and autonomy issues, 194.69 million yuan worth of cost efficiency was achieved. Meanwhile, faced with tight fiscal policies and loaning difficulty, Ningbo Steel strengthens "supply chain financing" to solve the financial difficulties of up &downstream customers on the one hand, and on the other hand, to effectively control its own financing cost and payment risks.

Faced with changing market demand, Ningbo Steel regulates the briefing attended by the purchasing, sales, finance, manufacturing departments. When these is market change, people can make timely judgments, set the pricing in simple and quick manner and grasp  the market rhythm. Meanwhile, in the first quarter, the increase in the proportion of Ningbo Steel's new products reached 10% compared with last year.

The product structure changes from "low end products as the staple "to "medium-end products as the staple'. Based on the new product market development and promotion of wheel steel, beam steel, pipeline steel, shipment steel and checkered steel plates in last year, Ningbo Steel enlarges production capacity according to market demand this year and has achieved good results in the first quarter. With container steel as example, production of first quarter reached more than 70000 tons; Ningbo Steel has become one of CIMC's major suppliers and achieved 17.91 million yuan profit in this single item.