Xuzhou's coke, steel plants yet to resume operations
Source: Mysteel
Jun 21, 2018 09:45
Coking works in Xuzhou in East China’s Jiangsu province remain idled following the local government’s blitz on environmental protection facilities in use, and when they’ll restart is anyone’s guess, sources in the province said Wednesday.
“There were rumours that quite a few coking plants would likely restart their furnaces by the end of this month but now they’re saying their plants may remain stopped a bit longer,” a market watcher in Xuzhou said. “The coke producers are still in the process of upgrading their equipment and technology. Also, we heard that several plants located close to urban areas were told to shut and relocate further away from population centres but apparently those makers are still struggling to find new places to set up.”
Last month the Xuzhou government issued orders requiring coke makers to upgrade their environmental protection equipment including the use of coke dry quenching technology and the adoption of desulfurization and denitration techniques, as Mysteel reported.
Once the upgrades and modifications are completed, the coke makers must apply for approval from local authorities before they can bring their coking capacity back on-stream, the Xuzhou source said, adding that to his knowledge no coking plants have so far received the required permissions.
Xuzhou is one of East China’s top coking bases with about 15 million tonnes/year of coking capacity at local coking works in total. However, the city has been struggling with problems of atmospheric pollution for a long time which the local government blamed partly on the prevalence of outdated environmental protection equipment and a rather congested layout of factories and industries. Thus, the city government’s clampdown in May in which all coking plants were ordered idled was not so surprising, Mysteel notes.
And it’s not just the coke makers sitting idle. Since early April, all steelmakers in Xuzhou were ordered to stop their operations. To date, the steelmakers are under rectification and upgrading of their environmental protection equipment too and no steelmakers have restarted business either, an official from a Xuzhou-based steel mill said.
Total molten iron capacity in iron- and steelmakers in Xuzhou is about 6 million t/y, Mysteel notes.
Written by Sean Xie, xiepy@mysteel.com
Edited by Russ McCulloch, russ.mcculloch@mysteel.com
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