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As part of its efforts to help reduce CO2 emissions, JFE Steel, Japan’s second largest integrated mill, has signed long-term contracts to charter three new Capesize bulk carriers fuelled by liquified natural gas (LNG) to transport its iron ore and coal from overseas suppliers. JFE will be the first Japanese steel producer to deploy large-sized LNG-fuelled vessels, the company announced on July 20.
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China has formally launched the national carbon emission quota trading system and start e-trading simultaneously among the country’s over 2,000 power houses first at 0930 (Beijing time) on July 16, with the trading in two daytime sessions on Monday-Friday.
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For July-December, China’s domestically-produced iron ore concentrates may reach 152-154 million tonnes, or up 6-8 million tonnes on year and resulting in an added supply of 13-15 million tonnes for the whole 2021, as the domestic iron ore mining operations are expected to be smooth after a bumpy H1, and the newly-commissioned projects will be able to deliver products to the market, Mysteel shared its outlook.
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More steel producers in North and East China have been imposed on restrictive measures on their daily production for pollution control during the celebration of the centenary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) on July 1.
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Steel producers including integrated mills and re-rollers in Tangshan, North China’s Hebei province or over 100km away from Beijing, have been requested by the local authorities to observe stricter curbs on their operations over June 24-July 1 for the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, local market sources confirmed on June 25.
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Tangshan, China’s largest steel producing hub in North China’s Hebei province, has just imposed another round of emergency curbs on local steel mills, foundries, and steel re-rollers over June 10-15 to “combat ozone pollution”, according to a latest notice from the local authority.
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Shandong province, China’s third largest steelmaking province in East China after Hebei and Jiangsu, will be raising electricity charges to the local steel mills that have yet met the country’s ultra-low emission standards since July 1, prompting them to accelerate the rectification, local mill sources confirmed on June 8.
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To achieve ecologically sustainable development and low carbon emissions, China’s steel mills need to keep their steel capacity expansions under control, Mysteel Global learned from speakers at the 11th China International Steel Congress in Shanghai on May 27.
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As the demand for liquid medical oxygen (LMO) mounts in the battle against the devastating second wave of Covid-19, court orders, circulars from district collectors and verbal urgings from state officials are seeking augmentation of supply of this life-saving gas from the iron and steel industry. The ways and means include diversion of industrial oxygen to hospitals as LMO, mill closures and production curbs on secondary sector mills and hand-over of empty cylinders for O2 refills.
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Despite the market’s fast and furious reaction to last week’s news of production curbs being imposed on steelmakers in Handan city in North China’s Hebei province, as of Tuesday morning mills in the city were generally keeping their production steady, according to local industry sources there.
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Integrated steel plants are throwing a lifeline to severely impacted Covid patients. From PSUs Steel Authority of India (SAIL) and Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited to private producers Tata Steel and JSW Steel to Vedanta and more, all are pitching in with liquid medical oxygen (LMO) even as new infections breach the 3.33 lakh per day level.
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Japanese steelmaker and plant builder Kobe Steel has announced the first successful charge of Hot Direct Reduced Iron (HDRI) produced by a new DRI plant constructed in Algeria and supplied by Midrex Technologies, Inc. Kobe’s wholly owned subsidiary in the US, with its consortium partner Paul Wurth S.A based in Luxembourg.
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Shougang Group, a tier-one steel mill in China, expects its Shenzhen-listed arm to achieve a 405-457% on-year surge in the net profit in the first quarter, mainly as its two steel plants in Tangshan, North China’s Hebei, have both been exempt from the ongoing restrictions with their “exceptional efforts in pollution control”, a Beijing-based source close to the steel mill shared last Friday.
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There might have been some wavering at the start but blast furnace steelmakers in Tangshan, China’s top steel producing city, seem to have quickly realised their local government is committed to enforcing tough new restrictions on their operations to improve city air quality. Mysteel’s latest survey shows that during the two weeks since the government announced that all but two of the city’s mills must slash production, the capacity utilization rate of the 126 local blast furnaces had plummeted to a 20-month low of 58.5% as of April 1.
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Nippon Steel, Japan’s largest integrated mill, plans to develop technologies for a large-scale electric-arc furnace mill (EAF) and will start installation around 2030 as a part of the company’s ‘Carbon Neutral Vision 2050’ project, it announced on March 30. The EAF will replace one of its existing blast furnaces, but further details are not decided, it said.
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China’s steel sector has been targeting to reach its carbon emission peak by 2025, or five years ahead of the country’s target for the whole economy, and by 2030, it aims to cut carbon emission further by 30% from 2025, the domestic steel market has been circulating an action plan proposed by the industrial participants.
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The latest emergency restrictions, though lifted on March 15, has warned the steel producers in Tangshan - China’s top steelmaking city – to be prepared for more frequent and intensified curbing for the rest of 2021 especially when the city is determined to shake off the negative image as one of the country’s ten most polluted cities among the 168 under Beijing’s monitoring, market analysts maintained.
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A most serious sandstorm in a decade has attacked most of North and Northwest China on the morning of March 15, closely following a heavy smog for the previous few days, and logistics services in the ferrous community have been slowed down with traffic lights being hardly visible in some areas, market sources grudged on the morning of March 15.
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The world’s third largest iron ore miner BHP, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with China’s HBIS Group Co (HBIS), a top-tier steel mill with all the core steelmaking facilities in North China’s Hebei province, agreeing to invest $15 million in total in the next three years to research and explore technologies and pathways that will mitigate greenhouse gas reduction in the steelmaking.
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Inner Mongolia in North China, now the country’s second-largest coal mining region after Shanxi in North China too and with the most competitive power charges, mulls blocking any new industrial projects including steel, coke, ferroalloys, non-ultra-high electrode graphite and aluminium starting 2021, aiming to rein in on the region’s power consumption mainly by such industrial plants, according to a draft by its Development and Reform Committee.
