Tangshan's July steel curbing details stay mysterious

Details for Tangshan government's curbing on the capacities of sintering and blast furnaces among the local steel mills including the timeline and actual cuts remain a mystery despite the widespread market speculation, and the commencement date seems to be later on July 20 than the speculated July 10, Mysteel understands from the market.

Details for Tangshan government’s curbing on the capacities of sintering and blast furnaces among the local steel mills including the timeline and actual cuts remain a mystery despite the widespread market speculation, and the commencement date seems to be later on July 20 than the speculated July 10, Mysteel understands from the market.

A copy of the government notice on the pollution control issued on July 11 with the stamp of Tangshan Ecology and Environmental Protection Work Leadership states that the city will conduct a city-wide reduction of sulfur dioxide (SO₂), nitrogen dioxide (NO₂) and carbon monoxide (CO) emission over July 20-August 31 in all high-power consuming and high-emission industries that go beyond steel, coking, cement, glass and thermal power houses.

A contact person listed in the document confirmed the validity of the notice, but he declined to disclose any more details.

The latest move is to enable Tangshan to hit the 2018 air quality improvement target, according to the notice, and the proposed duration of the latest curbing measure, if true, will be different and last longer than the originally-speculated July 10-31.

The notice requests all the county- and township-level authorities to submit their individual implementation plans to the city government no later than 15:00 (Beijing time) on July 13, without specifying any exact degrees of cuts on capacities such as coking, sintering, or other facilities.

It does mention, though, that those plants that are located outside the downtown areas, with their operations up to the industrial standards and emission up to requirements, and having installed their own railways, should be imposed less severe restriction measures.

So far on July 12, steel mills in Tangshan have yet received any official orders on capacity cuts or halts.

“The capacity restrictions are unavoidable if the city government wants to deal with air pollution and now, so we are prepared for any moves even though we have not got any formal order yet,” an official from a Tangshan steel mill said.

Recently, market speculates that Tangshan will cut all steel mills’ sintering capacity by 50%, and blast furnace by 30% or 50% depending on their locations, as reported.

“No official details have been released despite all the rumors, but I think it highly likely that the restrictions will be as harsh as speculated, as Tangshan desperately needs to change the image as China’s most polluted city,” an official from a second local steel mill commented.

Tangshan was ranked the most polluted city both for April and May among China’s 74 major cities, according to the releases from China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment.

Tangshan holds the majority of steel capacity in Hebei province, with the latter being the China’s top steel production base with a 240 million tonnes/year steel capacity, or one quarter of the country’s total. Hebei, on the other hand, neighboring Beijing, is crucial for the air quality improvement in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region.

Written by Venus Wang, wangyi@mysteel.com

Edited by Hongmei Li, li.hongmei@mysteel.com