Steel Mills in China’s Xuzhou City Set to Resume Operations Post Environmental Checks

According to the market reports, steel mills in China’s Xuzhou city situated in country’s second largest steelmaking province are set to resume operations after the closure of 2 to 2.5 months for an environmental upgrade.

In April 2018, Xuzhou, home to 18 steel mills with total annual crude steel capacity of 13 MnT ordered complete shutdown for the steel plants in the city until they met tough anti-pollution rules to clear up the smoggy sky.

Xuzhou was identified by the Environmental Ministry as one of the 10 cities across China with the worst air quality in the first five months of the year 2018. A team of Beijing-led inspectors left the city last week following a month of environmental checks in Jiangsu.

Mills are facing stringent environmental checks

It was believed that the EAFs (electric arc furnaces) or mini-mills will be given an early go-ahead to resume operations because EAFs uses scrap and electricity to generate steel, emitting far less carbon than blast furnaces which use coal and iron ore in a sintering process generating more pollution.

However, as per the market sources, not all mills in the city will restart production and that only two to three major mills will reopen in July given the stringent environmental checks.

One such mill that is expected to churn out hot metal this week is Huahong Special Steel Co. The company is one of the biggest mills in Xuzhou and has two blast furnaces with a total capacity of 2.08 MnT a year.

Steel mills in Xuzhou were asked to install environmental equipment such as dust collectors, desulfurisation units and denitration devices, requiring millions of yuan of investment.

The city plans to ensure the concentration in the air of small particulate matter, known as PM2.5, remains below 60 micrograms per cubic metre. In the first half of year 2018, the average PM2.5 level in the city was 73.17 micrograms.

China has ordered a host of cities to crack down on heavy industry as part of its years-long war on smog amid concerns about environmental damage and injury to people’s health.