Steelmakers in Tangshan complied with production curbs ahead of ‘two sessions’

SHANGHAI, May 20 (SMM) – Steelmakers in Tangshan are complying with production curbs imposed to control air quality as China’s most important political events—Two Sessions—will kick off on Thursday in the capital city Beijing, showed the latest SMM survey.

Starting Monday morning, blast furnace mils, re-rollers, lime kilns and foundries in the Fengrun, Lubei, Qian’an and Luannan of Tangshan are required to suspend most of their sintering machines or completely halt production until the end of the month.

The curbs are not imposed on blast furnaces, and re-rollers that get a “good” in the assessment of environmental protection status in Fengrun and Luannan are also exempted from the production curbs.

Tangshan’s Fengnan district, Qianxi county and Zunhua city earlier this month issued their anti-air pollution production curb plans for May.

This round of production curbs is expected to have limited impact on supply of steel products from the top steelmaking hub.