This year, China will shift its focus on cutting down on its actual output, a major difference from the past few years when the core task is to eliminate excess and obsolete steel capacities, Wu Xianfeng , an official from the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE), shared in Shanghai on July 29 at the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA)’s interim meeting with its members.
In the past few years, China’s crude output grew on year despite the ongoing efforts in eliminating the outdated steel capacities, as some mills have seriously overrun their steelmaking capacities, reaching 150-200% of the designated volume, which has caused severe pollution, making it impossible to preserve the environment, he added.
For the remainder of the year, crude steel output curbing, thus, will be more stringent in the regions with serious air pollution and on those mills that have scored low in environmental protection efforts, according to Wu, while those steel mills that are categorized as “A” performers and have met “ultra-low emission” are free to produce as much steel as last year.
By now, 94 million tonnes/year crude steel capacity in China’s 14 steelmakers have met the criteria of “ultra-low emission”, and another 560 million t/y crude steel capacity among 224 Chinese steel mills are in the progressing towards “ultra-low emission”, Wu shared.
To ascertain the effectiveness of steel output restrictive efforts, the measures should be as detailed and thorough as possible, including the operational hours of each production line and facility, he emphasized.
Wu’s remarks confirmed the wide market expectation that the China will impose a wide-range steel output cut across the country in the second half of 2021, and so far local authorities in Gansu of Northwest China, Hubei in Central China, Jiangsu, Anhui and Shandong in East China and Jiangxi in Southeast China have all instructed their local steel mills on reining in their steel output for the rest of 2021, as reported.
In the first half of 2021, China produced 563 million tonnes of crude steel, or up 11.8% on year, with January-April posting on-month growths while May-June reporting on-month declines in steel output, CISA shared, which indicate a real challenge for the country to curtail its 2021 steel output below 2020’s 1.065 billion tonnes.
Written by Villanelle Xia, xiayi@mysteel.com
This article has been published under an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.
Leave a Reply