China: Tangshan mills slapped with new production curbs
Steel producers in Tangshan, China’s top steel production base in North China’s Hebei, have again been ordered to observe emergency restrictions on ma...
A city government notice which began circulating from Wednesday morning said that the government was adopting the second-highest level of emergency measures - the "orange" alert level - as the city will encounter "medium to heavy pollution, or even extreme heavy pollution, for a certain period of time."
Though the measures target all polluting industries including coke and cement producers, as well as construction projects, it is clear that steel mills and steel re-rollers are a core focus, Mysteel Global notes.
"Winter is the season when smog tends to occur very frequently as the air is generally still, so the pollution cannot be readily dispersed," an official from a Tangshan steel mill observed.
For 22 steel producers in Tangshan, the notice gave details as regards how production facilities at each steel enterprise should be restricted, Mysteel Global notes. The severity of the restrictions varies, depending on each individual mill's environmental protection performance.
The restrictions are largely the same as those introduced over November 7-21 and generally target the mills' sintering machines, shaft furnaces, blast furnaces and converters, Mysteel Global learnt from the notice.
Though local steel producers are becoming accustomed to such pollution control curbs, they are still troubled by the very frequent restrictions, according to another steelmaker.
"With limited molten iron output, we need to very carefully gauge and adjust the products we are going to make, in order to maximize the efficiency and profitability," he said.
"This is challenging as we need to both guarantee the supplies to our clients and prevent ourselves from falling to losses," he said.
On the other hand, with sintering activities being restricted and the use of trucks to transport steel and raw materials to and from the works being prohibited, "there is risk that steelmakers may run out of sintering ores to maintain production, especially were the restrictions to last for a very long time," according to him. His company has been working to accumulate enough sintering ore in preparation for such scenario.
For some of Tangshan's re-rollers, the latest government order has resolved a quandary for them. "After the latest round of curbs was lifted on November 21, many were still considering whether to resume operations, given the meagre profits they were earning," a Tangshan source said. The new production ban has relieved them of having to make that decision, he observed ruefully.
Written by Olivia Zhang, zhangwd@mysteel.com
This article has been published under the exchange agreement between MySteel Global and SteelMint.
