China’s Handan tightens control on mills for Sept-Oct

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.

The new controls cover manufacturing and mining sectors regarded as major sources of pollution such as steel production, coke making, limestone mining and zinc oxide smelting, Mysteel Global notes. For the steel industry, mills in Handan will be required to observe an additional 4.4-percentage point reduction on their production operations this month and next, while the