BREAKING NEWS: Tangshan steel mills on curbing again
Source: Mysteel
Jan 08, 2019 12:00
According to the three-day air quality forecast on the website of China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment on January 7, Tangshan's air quality is forecast to be with light to heavy pollution.
Together with sintering controls, coke plants in Tangshan, similar to the previous round of restriction, have been notified to extend their coking process to 28-36 hours again until January 14 to help reduce waste gas emission during the period, according to the notice.
Moreover, trucks to and fro the local ports in Tangshan have been temporarily stopped too, except those that are crucial for people's livelihood and for exporting, according to an official from the Caofeidian port under the Tangshan city government jurisdiction, confirming, “the suspension will be lasting over 12:00 on January 8 to 24:00 on January 14, which will disturb steel mills’ logistics.”
Meanwhile, no trucks of key industrial enterprises in Tangshan are allowed to enter any works, except those that are crucial for work safety, according to market sources. Steelmaking raw materials such as iron ore, coking coal, and coal are mainly relying on trucks for transportation, and the truck ban is expected to reduce dust pollution, Mysteel understands.
Trucks have just been on the road normally when the last round of curbing ended on January 3, as over December 20-January 3, Tangshan ordered lengthening of coking, trucking ban, and steel mills’ sintering suspension.
It is hard to predict how much iron or steel output will be affected with this latest curbing, but this, to some extent, has been spot-on in proving some Tangshan steel mills’ worries that emergency curbing could be imposed anytime when queried on January 4.
Tangshan is of great importance in improving the air quality in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area, as it is the core steel production base in Hebei boasting around 116 million tonnes/year of steel capacity, or around 11% of the country’s total, according to Mysteel’s calculations.
A wider scope of regions in China including the “2+26” cities have been in the middle of their individual winter restriction schemes that will end in March, and January is the trickiest month in China with more frequent smog attacks because of the weather.
Written by Victoria Zou, zyongjia@mysteel.com
Edited by Hongmei Li, li.hongmei@mysteel.com
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