Whose high-speed rail feast?

The railroad development feast stimulated the continued soaring of related railway equipment and infrastructure stocks, but the biggest gains were the so-called “high-speed rail concept”, such as CSR, CNR, Jinxi axles, Axis Research (32.20,0.00,0.00). %), Northwest Bearing, Tianma shares etc.

However, after an in-depth investigation, the author discovered that these so-called high-speed rail stocks are purely speculative and may not be able to produce high-speed rail parts in the next few years. On the contrary, those railway infrastructure stocks will surely benefit from the railway development.

According to relevant plans, during the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” period, the high-speed rail will usher in the construction peak. In 2011, the national railway plans to invest 700 billion yuan in infrastructure investment, which provides a huge market opportunity for the entire high-speed rail equipment manufacturing enterprises. According to the “Medium-and-long-term railway network plan (adjusted in 2008)”, by 2012, China will build 42 high-speed rail passenger lines with a total mileage of more than 13,000 kilometers, which will create 800 new demand for EMUs by 2020. China's high-speed railway mileage will reach 18,000 kilometers, providing a broad market space for China's high-speed railway bearings. Industry experts estimate that the high-speed rail bearing market in China will exceed RMB 2 billion in the next three years. However, the investigation of the weekly financial report found that as the high-speed train bearing field of high-speed rail infrastructure parts, the international giants such as Sweden SKF, Germany FAG, and Japan NTN are firmly occupying the Chinese market.

At present, the basic mechanical parts and components have become a shortcoming that restricts the development of China's manufacturing industry to high-end. According to the relevant plans, during the “12th Five-Year Plan” period, the government will continue to increase the localization of high-end equipment parts and components, and high-speed rail-related parts plans to achieve a localization rate of 80%.

None of the domestic manufacturers have the production capacity boosted by the high-speed railroad leap and localization, and the “high-speed rail concept” has continued to grow since July last year. In the early days of the market crash, the high-speed rail stocks have risen against the trend.

However, some researchers have disclosed to the author that the bearing research and development capabilities of high-end products are relatively low. Although the matching rate for domestic hosts reached 80%, the matching and maintenance of important bearings such as high-speed railway passenger cars, medium-to-high-end cars, and high-level rolling mills still basically rely on imports.

"Bearings are the key parts of the country's major technical equipment. At present, high-end bearings such as sedans, high-speed railways, wind power, and precision machine tool spindle bearings have always been the soft underbelly of China's bearing industry, relying on imports for a long time. Because the development of China's bearing industry can not keep up, it is strongly pulling. The import of bearings, such as in the development of high-speed railways, bearings for EMUs with a speed of over 200 kilometers per hour are all imported.” said Hong Jian Securities analyst Jian Jian.

“The bearing products produced in China have large gaps with well-known foreign companies in terms of performance and price ratio, high precision, low noise, long life, and high reliability.” Yu Jian said, “At present, China has more than 160 km/h passenger cars. It is a realistic problem facing the development of the railway bearing industry in China that the use of bearings is entirely dependent on imports, and that localization of domestic market share is achieved through upgrading technology.

According to Yu Jian, the high-speed performance of the bearing is the basic condition that determines whether it can adapt to high-speed railways. Train requirements can operate under very strict working conditions. Especially in the operating conditions of radial, axial, and sometimes large acceleration in the direction of rotation, it is required that the railway bearing must be extended for a maintenance period and must maintain its function with maximum reliability.

On February 15th, Jinxi Axle Securities Department staff told the Financial Weekly News that the company was mainly engaged in the manufacture of axles. The axles currently used in high-speed rails with speeds above 300 kilometers are all imported, and no domestic companies can produce them. The company originally did some test delivery tests, but it is unclear how the results will be.

Yan Jian reveals that although China's bearing industry has developed rapidly in recent years, it has mainly concentrated in the field of ordinary bearings. Compared with the world's most powerful bearing countries, China still has a large gap, mainly in high-precision, high-tech content and high added value. The proportion of products is low, product stability is poor, reliability is low, and life is short. Reflected in the market, our demand for high quality bearings depends on imports. Among them, the compound growth rate for precision grade and large-size bearings is about 20%. In the total demand, market demand for machine tools such as precision bearings, construction machinery, heavy-duty rolling mill bearings, high-tech bearings and other market demand.

Axis Research Securities Department staff on February 15 more directly to the financial weekly said, "This year will certainly not come out, it may not be able to produce a large number of high-speed rail supporting bearings within a few years."

In July 2010, China Bearing Industry Association launched a conference on high-speed railway bearings and determined that Axis Research will take the lead in the project and carry out R&D of high-speed railway bearings in the bearing industry. Afterwards, the Ministry of Science and Technology released the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” guidelines for the competitive bidding of “research and application of key technologies for high-speed railways and urban rail transit vehicle bearings”, aiming at urgently needed bearings for high-speed railways, subways, light rails and other urban rail transit vehicles. , Develop high-reliability bearings, break key technologies, and complete reliability tests. The goal of the project is to set the speed of the high-speed railway bearing to ≥250km, and the bearing speed of the rail transit vehicle should be ≥100km per hour; the mass production capacity should be formed to achieve industrialization. Progress of project planning: Project research was completed in 2011, mainly including thematic decomposition work, analysis and formulation of bearing speed spectrum and load spectrum, structural optimization design and simulation analysis of bearings, and so on. In 2012, the design research and drawings of bearings were fully completed. The design, completion of the research and analysis of heat treatment technology, etc.; completed in October 2013, the bearing test bench, performance assessment and reliability assessment; December completed the project acceptance.

Axis Institute of Technology said that the company has jointly participated in bidding for this project, including Luoyang LYC Bearing Co., Ltd., Harbin Bearing Group Corporation and other enterprises and colleges and universities, and there are no results. Although Axis Technology has made some preliminary preparations for this project, it is not as stated in some reports that "the first set of samples has been developed and some performance tests have been conducted."

Yan Jian revealed that recently China has just imported some testing equipment from the United States, specifically designed to detect the performance of high-speed rail-related spare parts. Although some companies claim to be able to produce high-end bearings, they are still waiting for the product to be inspected because the bearings are consumables. Therefore, the indicators such as service life must undergo rigorous testing.

"Because the procurement of high-speed rail-related products has strict procurement qualifications, at present, there are no relevant companies in China that have passed the test. At least it is necessary for domestic companies to pass the tests before they can say which companies can produce high-speed rail-related spare parts." Yan Jian then revealed.

"At present, China's high-speed rail bearings still rely on imports, and the realization of high-speed rail bearings in the next five years may need to be slowed down. For example, Tianma has always had a pass to enter the high-speed rail bearing market, but in fact high-speed rail bearings have very high barriers to entry. According to our survey, domestic No manufacturer has the ability to produce high-speed rail bearing products,” the researchers said.