Tonghua Iron & Steel Delays Restart Plan on Environmental Protection, SMM Reports

Recently, Tangshan City has initially formulated a plan for off-peak production in the steel industry during the heating season in 2021-2022.

2021 saw concentrated blast furnace capacity upgrade programs in 2021. According to the plans issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology by end of 2020, the scheduled blast furnace capacity commissioning and retirement in 2021 should have been 97.53 million mt and 103.86 million mt respectively.

The hot rolling plant of Guangxi Iron and Steel successfully produced 0.85mm×1280mm steel strip, breaking the world record for the thinnest hot strip rolled conventional wide-band steel products in the industry.

After the Zimbabwe Environmental Administration (EMA) approved Dingsen Steel to start operations, Mvuma, the largest steel company in the region, is ready for the trial operation.

China produced 101.74 million mt of steel semi and finished products in October, down 14.9% on the year. The output totalled 1.22 billion mt from January to February, up 2.8% on the year.

This is a roundup of news in the steel industry for last week.

On Saturday (30 October) local time, the United States and the European Union reached an agreement to ease a trade dispute that began under the Trump administration. US Commerce Secretary Raimondo, US Trade Representative Dyche and US National Security Advisor Sullivan announced that the US and the EU have reached an agreement on steel and aluminium tariffs to resolve diplomatic differences that arose during the Trump administration.

The operating rates of blast furnaces at steel mills fell 1.3% on the week and rose 1.4% from a month ago to 78% as of October 20, SMM survey showed.

The General Office of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a notice on September 30, requiring staggered production of the steel industry in the heating season of 2021-2022 in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and surrounding areas (the “Notice”).

The operating rates of blast furnaces at steel mills rose 5.46% on the week and fell 0.95% from a month ago to 79.3% as of September 29, SMM survey showed.