Tangshan issues restrictions on steel mills to year-end
The emergency clamps on production will last for 22 days, much longer than the city’s previous rounds of emergency curbs observed on several occasions earlier this year that have usually run for no longer than seven days, Mysteel notes.
During this period, steel mills in Tangshan are asked to restrict their sinter machines by 30% to 100% of operative capacity (depending on their environmental protection conditions and locations) while truck transportation from/to steel works is banned, measures that are similar to previous rounds.
But despite of the longer duration, the new emergency restrictions are not hampering the operation of Tangshan mills to any large degree, though a few mills admitted they have halted more sinter machines.
Tangshan steel sector insiders contacted by Mysteel were blasé about the city’s directive. “We’re too used to these and have stocked up enough pellets to maintain our current levels of production (while) so far as the transportation ban is concerned, we have not received any notice yet,” said an official involved in raw materials procurement with one east-Tangshan mill on Monday, a view echoed by a salesman with a steel re-roller. “We are transporting our finished steel out as usual. I can’t feel any obvious impact so far,” he said.
Pronouncements about intensified restriction measures on Tangshan steel mills amid poor air quality have become a regular feature of business life in the city since mid-November, with their impact being gradually reflected in Mysteel’s data.
For example, as of December 6, the utilization rate of the 164 blast furnaces the city hosts averaged 65.82%, down again on week, albeit by a marginal 0.85 percentage point, but nonetheless marking the fourth week of consecutive declines. In fact, the utilization rate has decreased by a total of 6.22 percentage points from the recent high of 72.04% reached on November 9, Mysteel data shows.
Written by Olivia Zhang, zhangwd@mysteel.com
Edited by Russ McCulloch, russ.mcculloch@mysteel.com
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