APRIL 2021

NOTICEBOARD

THE STEELBILLETREBARSTEEL WIRE ROD

RM2,576

RM2,863

RM2,913SCRAP

IRON ORE

RM1,820

RM725

TRADE PERFORMANCE
Malaysia Trade Performance, January-March 2021
Malaysia’s Iron and Steel trade value in March 2021 was recorded at RM 5.0 billion, increased by 19 percent
compared to RM 4.2 billion in March 2020. Trade balance has improved by 70 percent from trade deficit of RM 604.4
million in March 2020 to trade deficit of RM 181.20 million in March 2021.
Malaysia’s export in March 2021 increased by 33.3 percent to RM 2.4 billion from RM 1.8 billion in March 2020. Threemain export destinations in March 2021 were seen to China, Thailand and Singapore, represent about 41 percent, 7
percent and 5 percent of the total export value in the month respectively.
Malaysia’s import in March 2021 increased by 8.3 percent to RM2.6 billion from RM2.4 billion in March 2020. Top
three Malaysia’s import countries in March 2021 were Japan, China and Korea represent about 20 percent, 17
percent and 13 percent of the total import value respectively.
From January to March 2021, the trade value of the Iron and Steel products stood at RM 13.1 billion in 2021
compared to RM 12.9 billion in the same period of 2020, expanded by 1.6 percent. Trade balance narrowed by 28.6
percent from trade deficit of RM 1.2 billion in January to March 2020 to trade deficit of RM 856.9 million during thesame period of 2021.

Malaysia Trade Performance of Iron & Steel Industry
Month Trade ValueMar 2021: RM5.0billion

19.0 % M-o-M change

Mar 2020: RM4.2billion

Month Balance of Trade
Mar 2021: (RM181.2million)
Trade Deficit

70.0 % M-o-M change

Mar 2020: (RM604.4million)
Trade Deficit

Month Export
Mar 2021: RM2.4billion

33.3 % M-o-M change

Mar 2020: RM1.8billion

Month ImportMar 2021: RM2.6billion

8.3 % M-o-M change

Mar 2020: RM2.4billion

YTD Trade Value
Jan-Mar 2021: RM13.1billion

1.6 % Y-o-Y change

Jan-Mar 2020: RM12.9billion

Jan-Mar 2021: (RM856.9million)
Trade Deficit

YTD Balance of Trade28.6 % Y-o-Y change

Jan-Mar 2020: (RM1.2billion)
Trade Deficit[AUTHOR NAME]

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MSI WITH YOU
PRIME MINISTER TAN SRI MUHYIDDIN YASSIN MEETING WITH MEMBERS OF THE INDUSTRY
On 15th April 2021, the prime minister had a meeting involving the industry leaders, YB Dato’ Mohamed Azmin bin Ali
and YB Datuk Lim Ban Hong to discuss on efforts needed to sharpen the economy. The meeting was held at Dewan
Perdana, MITI Tower. The engagement session also discussed on the collaboration from the public-private sector insupporting job creation efforts for Malaysians who has lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

APPRECIATION DINNER BY YBMK MITI
On 11th April 2021, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) had organized an appreciation dinner at
Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur Hotel. The appreciation dinner celebrated the retirement of Dato’ Azman Mahmud, Chief
Executive Officer of MIDA, Datuk IR Dr Ahmad Fadzil, President & Group Chief Executive of SIRIM Berhad and Dato’
Wan Latiff Wan Musa, Chief Executive Officer of MATRADE.

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SIGNING CEREMONY FOR MITI & AGENCIES ON RESKILLING AND UPSKILLING PROGRAMME UNDERINITIATIVE
Mr Jarrod Lim Keng Yow, CEO of MSI has signed an agreement with Datuk Lokman Hakim Ali, Secretary General of
MITI on implementing the Reskilling and Upskilling Programme. Under the PENJANA Initiative, MSI will train 300
skilled workers to work in the Iron and Steel Industry through Programme Enhanced Employability of Unemployed
Workers and New Graduates in the Iron and Steel Industry.

OFFICIAL LAUNCH OF MALAYSIA SEMI CONDUCTOR INDUSTRY ASSOCIATIONThe official launch of Malaysia’s semi-conductor industry association was held on 6 April 2021 at Dorsett Grand
Subang. The event was officiated by YB Senator Datuk Lim Ban Hong, Deputy Minister of Ministry of International
Trade and Industry. The government aims to increase its efforts to enhance the productivity and competitiveness ofthe electric and electronics (E&E) sector to capitalize on the booming market for semi-conductor. E&E industry is the
key driver for industrial development which has contributed to the gross domestic product (GDP) for the past 50
years. In 2020, the total investment for the E&E sector was valued at RM15.6 billion with a total of 148 projects.

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4COVID-19 TEST BRIEFING SESSIONS
On 7 April 2021, Malaysia Steel Institute (MSI) is
collaborating with Prova Lab Sdn Bhd to offer a COVID-19
tests at competitive prices to industry players using online
registration and reporting system. The objective of theinitiative is to manage the pandemic at the workplace
more effectively and efficiently. Two sessions wereconducted to the Federation of Malaysia Hardware,
Machinery & Building Materials Dealers' Association(FMHMBA) and Steel Wire Associations Malaysia (SWAM).
The session was attended by committee members andmembers of the associations as they supported the initiative by MSI.

IFTAR PERDANA MITI DAN AGENSI SEMPENARAMADHAN 2021
On 20th April 2021, the Ministry of International Trade andIndustry (MITI) had organized the Iftar Perdana MITI dan
Agensi Sempena Ramadhan 2021. The event began withsharing knowledge on Al-Quran which is “My Quran Time”
followed by breaking the fast with iftar and Maghrib
prayer. YB Minister of MITI gave a speech, donations to
Pertubuhan Kebajikan Anak-anak Yatim/ Tahfiz, Isya Prayer
and tarawih. The event ended at 10.00 PM.

MALAYSIASTEEL
APPRECIATION NIGHT

ASSOCIATION(MSA)On 22nd April 2021, the CEO of MSI attended a dinnerorganised by the Malaysia Steel Association (MSA) and
Malaysian Iron and Steel Industry Federation (MISIF) held
Chuai Heng Banquet Hall, Kl. The dinner was rendered by
the Malaysian Government and other Umbrella
Associations such as MITI, FMM and Chinese Chamber forcollectively assisting in the restart of the industrial activities
during MCO and their contribution towards the progress of
the Malaysian Steel Industry.

at[AUTHOR NAME]5APPRECIATION MOMENTO TO TAN SRI DATO SOH THIAN LAI
The dinner was followed by a presentation of an appreciation momento to Tan Sri Dato Soh Thian Lai, having served
as a member of MSI Board of Director for the past 7 years and 10 months. Tan Sri Dato Soh will be exiting as a Board
Member of MSI by end May 2021. He is a founding member of MSI which was established in July 2013. The
management of MSI would like to take this opportunity to thank Tan Sri Dato Soh for his wisdom and insight inproviding strategic guidance in shaping MSI.

OTHERS

LILI’S FAREWELL
On 12th April 2021, MSI
had organized a farewelllunch at The Social,
Publika for lili as anappreciationforhercontribution
anddedication during her twoyear tenure at MSI. MSI
wishing her all the best in
the future.

[AUTHOR NAME]

6STEEL FACTS[AUTHOR NAME]

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EVENTS HIGHLIGHT[AUTHOR NAME]

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[AUTHOR NAME]

9STEEL NEWS
1. MITI Conducts Anti-Dumping Probe on Imports of Stranded Steel Wires from China
Date: 02 April 2021
Source: https://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2021/04/02/miti-conducts-anti-dumping-probe-onimports-of-stranded-steel-wires-from-china

KUALA LUMPUR: The government has received a petition fromSouthern PC Steel Sdn Bhd requesting for an anti-dumping
investigation to be conducted on imports of stranded steel wires
for prestressing concrete from China.
In a statement, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry(MITI) said the petitioner alleged that imports of the subject
merchandise are being dumped into Malaysia at a price much
lower than the selling price in China’s domestic market and this iscausing material injury to the domestic industry in Malaysia.
"The petitioner further claimed that the dumped
imports of the subject merchandise have increased in terms ofabsolute quantity and have caused material injury to the domestic industry.
"The government has evaluated and considered the evidence of dumping, injury and causal link and decided toinitiate an anti-dumping investigation on imports of the subject merchandise from the country,” it said.
In accordance with the Countervailing and Anti-Dumping Duties Act 1993 and its related Regulations, MITI said apreliminary determination will be made within 120 days from the date of initiation.
"If the preliminary determination is affirmative, the government will impose a provisional anti-dumping duty at therate that is necessary to prevent further injury to the domestic industry,” the ministry said.
In connection with the investigation, MITI will distribute questionnaires to interested parties importers, local
producers, producers or exporters of the subject merchandise in China and relevant association.
Other interested parties may request for the questionnaires in writing to MITI no later than April 15, 2021.
“Interested parties may also provide their views in writing, questionnaire responses and additional supporting
evidence to MITI by April 30, 2021.
“In the event no additional information is received within the specified period, the government will make its
preliminary findings based on the available facts,”it added. -Bernama[AUTHOR NAME]

102. Iron ore price back above $170 as China steel hits record
Date: 06 April 2021
Source: https://www.mining.com/iron-ore-price-above-170-on-robust-chinese-demand/

Iron ore prices rose on Tuesday, boosted by strong Chinese demand.
According to Fastmarkets MB, benchmark 62% Fe fines imported
into Northern China (CFR Qin gdao) were changing hands for $170.90
a tonne, up 1.43% from the previous trade.
China’s steel prices also jumped to record highs, on concerns oversupply curbs in the world’s biggest producer and exporter of
construction and manufacturing material.
Construction steel rebar’s May contract on the Shanghai Futures
Exchange ended the daytime trading session 2.1% higher at 5,180
yuan ($791) a tonne, after earlier climbing to 5,200 yuan, the highest
on record or since 2011.
Production restrictions in China’s top-steelmaking city ofTangshan during the peak demand season have brought down stocks at commercial warehouses and created a“bullish atmosphere” for the market, Sinosteel Futures analysts said in a note.
Iron ore was the best performing commodity in 2020, thanks to China’s early emergence from the pandemic and
Beijing’s heavy spending on economic stimulus, particularly infrastructure.
Iron ore price reached its highest level since September 2011 in mid-January, at $174.07 per tonne. The benchmark
hit an all-time high of $191.70 in February 2011.
Prices are expected to halve by the end of next year and then gradually decline to reach $72 a tonne in real terms by
the end of 2026.
(With files from Reuters)[AUTHOR NAME]

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3. What we mean when we talk about low-carbon steel

Date: 12 April 2021
Source: https://www.worldsteel.org/media-centre/blog/2021/blog-low-carbon-steel-meaning.html

Our industry’s history in many ways reflects the societies in which we operate, and since the industrial revolution,iron and steel production has been powered by coal.
This is now changing, and the steel industry, like the rest of society, is transforming to provide products andservices in a future in which the emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is severely curtailed.
The language associated with this shift is still developing, and consequently, a wide variety of expressions are being
used by different stakeholders.
These expressions are often used interchangeably but can sometimes mean hugely different things. What are we tomake of the increasingly varied use of the expression green steel? To some, it is simply a marketing term with nodefinition or boundary.
At the other extreme, some believe it is a term needing certification covering the breadth of the whole realm ofsustainability.
And the problem is not just with green steel. Is my green steel your clean steel or zero-carbon steel? And where are
the lines drawn between net-zero steel, zero-carbon steel and low-carbon steel?
At worldsteel, we are putting in place some definitions that will provide clarity on what we mean when we talkabout these topics.
Our industry and our members are working to develop and launch a new family of steel products, produced with amuch lower carbon burden than in the past.
This low-carbon steel is manufactured using technologies and practices that result in the emission of significantly
lower emissions than conventional production.
In 2021 most steel is produced using fossil fuel-based reductants; however, many steelmakers have implemented, orare developing, technologies that significantly reduce emissions from the core steelmaking process. Examples include:• Aço Verde do Brasil is using 100% charcoal to produce low carbon iron and steel products.
• ArcelorMittal is constructing a large-scale facility in Ghent, Belgium to convert steel plant waste gases toethanol, which can be used in a wide range of applications, including the production of synthetic fuels. A
similar commercial facility began operation in 2018 at Shougang Steel in China, producing 30 million litres of
ethanol for sale in the first year of operation.

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At Emirates Steel in the United Arab Emirates up to 800kt of CO2 per year is captured from the CO2 rich gas
stream from the ironmaking plant before being injected into a mature oil field for permanent storage• EVRAZ’s Rocky Mountain Steel in Colorado is transitioning from coal to solar. The EVRAZ plant will be thelargest on-site solar plant in the country dedicated to a single customer.
• HBIS, a leading Chinese steelmaker, is building a 1.2Mt capacity hydrogen metallurgy DRI demonstration
project. The project will use green and blue hydrogen technologies to explore a path to zero CO2 emissions
from the iron and steel making process.
• Nucor’s micro mill in Sedalia, Missouri, is the first U.S. steel plant to run on wind energy. The plant is apartnership between the steel company and local utility, which will power the plant after a power purchaseagreement between the companies.
• Tata Steel is developing innovative new smelting technology through their HIsarna project. HIsarna
technology can produce iron without coke ovens, or agglomeration facilities, producing a CO2 rich waste gas
stream ideally suited to CCS.
• thyssenkrupp Steel and Nippon Steel Corporation have launched a series of tests into the use of hydrogen in aworking blast furnace, aimed at significantly reducing the CO2 emissions arising during steelmaking.
Steel produced using all these technologies can be considered as low-carbon steel, though it is likely that what is
considered low-carbon steel now may be different by 2050 when regulation, societal expectations and technologies
have completely changed.
Many other expressions are used within our industry and by stakeholders to refer to steel produced using these nextgeneration production technologies.
worldsteel prefers and uses low-carbon steel as, like ‘low-carbon electricity', we feel it is intuitively easier tounderstand and its meaning is clear.
Green Steel is being used and interpreted by many different parties to mean different things, often in the context ofmarketing new more environmentally conscious products. It has been used to refer to steel manufactured using
breakthrough technology, steel produced from scrap, reused and remanufactured steel, and conventional steel withemissions offset through the retirement of carbon units or allowances. Given this inherent lack of clarity and diversityof meanings ‘green steel’ is not an expression worldsteel uses.
To be truly zero-carbon, steel would need to be produced without any CO2 emissions at all. This is a very high bar toreach, and it is difficult to conceive of a production technology that could achieve this in 2021.
Many may be moving towards this, but zero is absolute, and probably unachievable without the use of offsets forresidual carbon emissions. These residual emissions may arise in the supply chain, from the use of carbon-bearing
electrodes or the use of natural gas in associated processes.
Ultimately steel needs to contain some carbon, as this is what differentiates it from pure iron. While this essential
alloying carbon can be sourced from non-fossil sources, its presence makes ‘zero-carbon’ steel something of a
misnomer.
If, however, a balance can be achieved between the greenhouse gases put into the atmosphere when producing steel
and emissions taken out of the atmosphere by sinks, the resulting steel can be referred to as net-zero, or carbonneutral steel.
The production of net-zero steel may require offsets in other sectors to achieve true neutrality, and it is importantthat if claims of carbon neutrality are made producers are transparent about boundaries, their accounting
methodologies, and the quality and credibility of any offsets used.
A few steel companies are beginning to market fossil-free steel. Fossil-free steel is steel manufactured without using
any fossil fuels such as coal or natural gas, nor any fossil fuel-derived energy.
All fossil-free steel will be low-carbon, but not all low-carbon steel can be described as fossil-free. For example, lowcarbon steel produced in a facility employing carbon capture and storage (CCS) may well still use natural gas or coal,[AUTHOR NAME]

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but prevent the emission of CO2 to atmosphere. If biomass plays a role, it will be important to ensure it is responsibly
sourced[1].
Clean steel is a technical expression used in the steel sector to refer to steels containing low levels of impurities,oxides, inclusions, or low or ultra-low level of carbon dissolved in the metal. The phrase is in common use, including
by worldsteel in our 2004 ‘Study on Clean Steel’, and means something specific. As such worldsteel does not refer to“clean steel” in the context of climate change.
Carbon-free is also a difficult expression to relate to steel, after all, steel without carbon is iron, and the carbon
content of steel is precisely controlled to achieve the properties demanded in a specific batch. Carbon will need to be
added to hydrogen reduced iron in order to turn it into steel through the refining process
The climate change conversation is often conducted in terms of the need to decarbonise society. worldsteel does not
generally use this expression to refer to steel production, as it is the emissions from steel production that need to be
free of GHGs/CO2, not the process itself.
Many promising breakthrough technologies will still use carbon as a chemical reducing agent but prevent harmful
GHGs from being released into the atmosphere. So, while the emissions from our industry will ultimately bedecarbonised, the ironmaking process itself may not be.
Breakthrough technology produces low-carbon steel in a radically different way to the conventional blast furnace,
DRI or EAF technology. Examples of breakthrough technology being developed include hydrogen reduction, theapplication of CCS, the electrolysis of iron ore, a suite of carbon capture usage and storage (CCUS) technologies andnew smelting reduction processes.
Hydrogen is a key vector that will allow GHG emissions from the iron and steel sector to be significantly reduced, andmany of worldsteel’s members are exploring this technology option. Hydrogen is often attributed a colour, depending
on its low-carbon credentials.
When worldsteel talks about low carbon hydrogen, we mean:• Green hydrogen is produced through the electrolysis of water, powered by renewable electricity.
• Blue hydrogen is made from natural gas through the process of steam methane reforming combined with CCS.
• Hydrogen can also be produced using electrolysis using other sources of low-carbon electricity, such as
nuclear or CCS. We also consider this to be low-carbon.
Fossil hydrogen is made from unabated fossil fuels, chiefly:• Grey hydrogen is made from natural gas through the process of steam methane reforming, without CCS so
CO2 is emitted to atmosphere.
• Brown, or black hydrogen is manufactured through coal gasification and leads to significantly higher GHG
emissions than other hues.
step up is worldsteel’s 4-stage efficiency review process. step up aims to improve the efficiency of steel production
now, to support our members in operating their sites at a level of performance commensurate with the world’s mostefficient sites. step up is a transitional programme and should not be seen as providing a solution to the steel
industry’s climate change challenges.

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ABOUT MSI
Malaysia Steel Institute (MSI) is an industry driven enterprise supported and funded by the Ministry of International Trade &Industry (MITI) on shared responsibility basis with the industry. The main objectives of MSI are to promote and develop thecompetitiveness, resilience and sustainability of the Malaysian iron and steel industry; to provide advisory services and to carryout commission or promote the study of scientific, technology and economic aspects of iron and steel industry development in
Malaysia; and to promote iron and steel product standardisation and utilisation within Malaysia. For more information, please
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