China’s Tangshan City carries out Sizable Pollution and Steel Capacity Cuts in 2018

According to the latest government release, China’s largest steelmaking city of Tangshan in Hebei province has reduced steel capacity, upgraded its iron ore sintering units and have successfully implemented four-tiered steel output restriction regime that has contributed to an 8.66% Y-o-Y drop in particulate matter (PM 2.5) concentration.

The city government added that reducing coal use, relocating polluting enterprises and shutting down mills that violate environmental norms have helped the Tangshan city to cut its pollution level.

During the autumn-winter of 2018-19, the city had set a target of installing denitrification equipment in 136 iron ore sintering units with similar equipment to be also installed in four other industrial units. Now so far about 121 units have denitrification equipment, while 41 units have passed environmental inspections post-installation.

In order to control pollution, Tangshan has been restricting iron ore sintering since August 2018 and thereafter started shutting down sintering units from early December.

The city has reduced 5.02 MnT of crude steel capacity and 2.98 MnT of pig iron capacity in 2018. Part of these reductions was achieved by shutting down urban steel facilities. Several large mills are relocating capacity to coastal areas and building larger, emissions-compliant blast furnaces, while shutting down older, urban capacity.

A company called Fengnan Guofeng steel facilities in the urban area were completely shut down in December last year and its new 8 MnT capacity steel plant is being set up in the coastal area of Lingang city of Shanghai.

Another steel company, Shougang Jingtang started building a 9.4 MnT of the crude steel plant at the Caofeidian port in Tangshan city in 2015, with 11.9 MnT of crude steel capacity being eliminated from other plants. Hesteel is relocating its 7.5 MnT of crude steel plant from the urban area of Tangshan to the coastal region of Laoting.

Tangshan had also enforced a four-tiered steel output cut for the November 2018 to March 2019 period, requiring mills to cut output based on their emissions intensity.