China’s Linfen shuts two polluting coke plants for good
The two plants - Sanweiruide Coking and Yuanzhong Coking – both in Hongtong county of Linfen, ceased operations and cleared feedstocks at their coking plants sometime last week, according to a Shanghai-based market watcher, prior to the shutdown, they had been operating at 1.2 million t/y in total.
Earlier on May 27, Linfen city government ordered all coke plants and steelmakers in the areas of Yaodu district, Hongtong county and Xiangfen county, all being close to the urban region, to complete the “advanced treatment” on waste emissions via works including de-sulphurization, de-nitration and waste water treatment by the end of June, and those that had failed to do so before the deadline would be eliminated, as reported.
With all the ovens dismantled, the coking capacities from these two companies will be sold to the state-owned Shanxi Coking Group for the construction of a 1.7 million t/y new and advanced-tech coking project in Linfen, according to a company release on July 19, without mentioning the timetable of the project. Shanxi Coking Group is a subsidiary of Shanxi Coking Coal Group – China’s largest coking coal mining group.
Linfen’s tightening the grip on pollution control must have to with its perennial serious air pollution, Mysteel Global understands, as it was ranked the most polluted city over January-June among the 168 that have been under the regular air quality monitoring of China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE).
“The latest shutdowns, though may reduce coke supply regionally, will have little influence on China’s coke market nationwide,” a Shanghai-based analyst said, pointing out that coke plants in Linfen had been imposed on about 50% of coking capacity restriction in general.
China’s coke production was at 438.2 million tonnes as of 2018, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics.
Written by Sean Xie, xiepy@mysteel.com
Edited by Hongmei Li, li.hongmei@mysteel.com
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