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Chinese steel market sources have expressed only limited concern at the tougher production curbs announced Wednesday to be imposed on steel mills in North China over November-March. Market insiders canvassed on October 14 said it was taken for granted that restrictions on steel producers’ operations will continue, at least for the near future.
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Production among steel mills in North China’s Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region will be constrained between November 15 and March 15 in order to fulfil Beijing’s crude steel output reduction target and to improve air quality in the region, according to a notice jointly released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) on October 13.
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Beijing has been reviewing and cracking down on the blind development of projects with “Two Highs” - a short term referring to those projects with high emission and energy consumption, as such projects appear many over 2021-2025 and may lead to a serious increase in power consumption, China’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) shared in a post on September 20.
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This year China’s central government intends to include more of the country’s northern, eastern, and central regions in its annual campaign to reduce air pollution during autumn and winter by requiring industrial enterprises responsible for serious atmospheric pollution to further rein-in their production, according to a draft plan released by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) on September 16.
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East China’s Jiangsu province has stepped up the efforts in reducing power supply from power-intensive industrial plants recently and until September 16, 20 of 28 local steel producers in the country’s second largest steel producing hub after Hebei in North China, had been propelled to deepen their finished steel output cuts or completely halt their rolling lines, Mysteel’s latest tracking showed.
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Bar-mill capacity utilization among steel producers in East China’s Jiangsu, the country’s second largest steel producing province after Hebei, is seen falling by over one-third this month as more steelmakers in the province halt operations to conduct “intensive” maintenance, according to Mysteel’s latest survey. The mills are responding to government directives to tame energy consumption.
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Tropical Typhoon Chanthu, the 14th to whirl through East Asia this typhoon season, brought torrential rains and strong winds to China’s eastern provinces from Sunday through Tuesday, bringing local steel markets almost to a halt with trading suspended, transportation disrupted and demand stagnated, market sources indicated on Tuesday.
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With the official start of China’s usual autumn-winter “heating” season just weeks away, Chinese steel market watchers are wondering how this winter’s production curtailment campaign will unfold. Many believe that this year’s winter curbs might be elevated compared with previous years, with tougher restrictions imposed and the scope widened, due to the coming Winter Olympic Games.
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East China’s Jiangsu province, the country’s second largest steel producing province, commenced a campaign on September 8 to monitor energy consumption among local industrial enterprises including steelmakers, according to a government announcement circulating in the market.
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North China’s Handan city, Hebei province’s second largest steel producing hub after Tangshan, is tightening production controls on local industrial plants including steel mills over September-October to improve air quality, according to a government document circulating in China’s steel market on September 2.
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Nowadays, sustainability in the ferrous world has one more dimension, that of the big “C”, as in “carbon”, and many countries including those in the European Union, U.S., Australia, and China have been urging their ferrous industrial enterprises to pursue decarbonization goals. Their domestic companies are also taking their own initiatives to minimize their carbon footprints.
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China Steel Corp (CSC), Taiwan’s top integrated steel producer headquartered in Kaohsiung, South Taiwan, shared its cautious optimism towards the steel market for the second half of 2021 and next year in a press release on August 30.
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The world’s fourth largest iron ore miner - Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) - plans to spend $400-600 million in the fiscal year 2022 (July 1-June 30 2022) for its future development under the scheme of “Fortescue Future Industries (FFI)” including its decarbonisation efforts, the company shared in its releases on August 30.
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China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE) has sent its seven inspection teams to five provinces and two state-owned enterprises in the country, to investigate and uncover any illegitimate high energy-consuming and high-waste emitting projects, reincarnation of dismantled obsolete iron and steel capacities and any violations of environmental protection rules and regulations, according to a MEE notice on August 25.
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Meng Wei, NDRC spokesman of China’s National and Reform Commission (NDRC), for the first time, identified the issues in great details among the local authorities in dealing with de-carbonization and their misunderstanding by treating this as a “campaign” when she answered a media inquiry at the press conference on August 1.
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Carbon neutrality will bring profound changes to the global steel industry in that it will reduce steel demand, restructure demand, raise production cost, and erect “green” barriers in steel trading, Jiang Li, chief analyst of China Iron & Steel Association (CISA), remarked when presenting on July 28 at the 5th China Steel Derivatives International Conference 2021 in Shanghai.
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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.
