China's Tangshan City Orders Additional Output Cuts for Steel Mills

According to the latest updates, China's top steelmaking city, Tangshan in Hebei province has ordered steel mills and other industrial plants on Saturday to make additional output cuts on top of those already ordered during the winter heating season.

The government has issued a level II or "orange" pollution alert effective from Dec. 9 until the end of the month (31 Dec'18), the city government said in a statement. Under an orange alert, the second-highest warning behind red in China's four-tier system, steel mills are required to halve their output, while coal-fired power utilities must operate at "minimum" levels.

The steel mills in smog-prone Tangshan city will be required to shut their shut their sintering capacity by 30-60% or even shut down based on their emission level, while coke plants must extend production time in order to churn out less dust.

The city's mills have already complied with production restrictions ordered for the winter, with cuts averaging 30-35%, lower than 42% last year.

According to China National Environmental Monitoring Centre the average concentration of lung-damaging small breathable particles, known as PM2.5, has reached 90 micrograms per cubic metre whereas the country aims to keep national concentrations of PM2.5 below 35 micrograms by around 2035.

Along with steel mills, companies in construction materials, pharmaceutical, cement, and mining industry were also asked to enforce emergency measures under second-level (Orange) smog alerts, in December. Tangshan has also set restrictions on diesel-fuelled trucks delivering commodity materials to and from ports.