China: BFs below 1000m3 to be closed by 2022 in Hebei

The Hebei Provincial Development and Reform Commission, while reducing overcapacity and strictly prohibiting new production capacity that is not mandated, has implemented "six modernization" tools for the Hebei province's the iron and steel industry. These are as follows:

Large-scale modernization of BFs: Blast furnaces will be upgraded and transformed, except in the case of pig iron and special steel enterprises. Efforts are on to shut down blast furnaces below 1,000 cubic metres and converters below 100 tonnes by the end of 2022.

Accelerating development of high-end steel: Stress is on high-quality and value-added products. The focus is on developing new materials, and high-end special steel.

Consolidation: The government will implement market-oriented policies that will support steel mills to become competitiveness and implement strategic mergers and acquisitions. Efforts are on to make the top 10 iron and steel enterprises account for more than 70% of the province's production capacity.

Strategic expansion: Regions which have market demand, resource and energy security, and production capacity are being encouraged to undertake and expand strategic steel production, and construction projects etc.

Energy conservation: Carbon reduction actions are being undertaken, and the region is studying the carbon peaking path of the iron and steel industry, and innovating to develop green and low-carbon technologies.

Digitalization: Speeding up digital transformation of the iron and steel industry. Efforts are on to achieve a digitalisation rate of about 80% for key processes.

One Law One Regulation
Recently, the 32nd meeting of the Standing Committee of the 13th Hebei Provincial People's Congress held a joint group meeting to review the "One Law, One Regulation" (Environmental Protection Law of the People's Republic of China", "Hebei "Provincial Ecological Environmental Protection Regulations").

Since implementation of the regulation to initiate environmental protection in Hebei province, significant achievements have been made in all aspects:

Achievements in industrial field
Remarkable achievements have been made in environmental protection work in industries in Hebei province. In 2021, energy-saving audit will be carried out for 275 high-energy-consuming enterprises such as steel, building materials, petrochemicals, and chemicals, and 442 green and low-carbon transformation projects will be implemented.

Mine governance
The first step was to implement closures and bans on disorderly development of mines. Till now, 735 such mines causing environmental damage and undergoing disorderly development have been completely withdrawn from the market. Compared with the beginning of 2020, the number of mines in the province has decreased by 30.57%, and the proportion of large and medium-sized mines has increased by 2.68 percentage points, reaching 26.06%.

The second step was to carry out restoration of mines. As of end-2021, 4,330 mine sites have been restored and managed.

The third was to crack down on illegal mining. Since 2020, about 1,113 illegal mining cases have been investigated, and RMB 21.0299 million in fines and confiscated funds have been collected, 27 people have been held accountable, and 156 people have been transferred for criminal activities.

The fourth was to strengthen daily supervision of mine development. The "Hebei Province Mine Geological Environment Intelligent Supervision Platform" was set up to supervise the restoration of mines.