By the end of the year, Hebei will have retired its iron and steel production

Under the requirement of the air pollution control policy of 28 cities around Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, the industrial structure adjustment of heavy pollution industry will be further promoted, especially the steel industry. On October 16, the Ministry of ecology and environment issued the plan for comprehensive treatment of air pollution in 28 cities around Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei in autumn and winter (hereinafter referred to as the plan). In order to promote the continuous improvement of ambient air quality in Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and surrounding areas, the plan has formulated six main tasks and six safeguard measures, including adjusting and optimizing the industrial structure, accelerating the adjustment of energy structure and actively adjusting the transportation structure. Among them, the plan requires that all localities should, in accordance with the plan requirements for industrial structure adjustment and high-quality development of iron and steel, building materials, coking, chemical and other industries that have been issued locally, detail and decompose the tasks in 2019, define the main equipment corresponding to the eliminated production capacity, ensure that they are completed on time and make progress in stages.

By the end of December this year, Tianjin shut down one 588m3 blast furnace of Rongcheng iron and Steel Co., Ltd.; Hebei Province reduced and withdrew 14 million tons of iron and steel capacity, 3 million tons of coke capacity, 1 million tons of cement capacity and 6.6 million weight boxes of plate glass capacity; Shanxi Province reduced 1.75 million tons of iron and steel capacity, 10 million tons of coke capacity was shut down and eliminated; Shandong Province reduced 10.31 million tons of coking capacity. In addition, Hebei Province should speed up the reduction of pig iron blast furnace and converter under 100t for steelmaking under 1000m3. Hebei, Shanxi and Shandong accelerated the reduction of 4.3 m coke oven with long furnace life and poor furnace condition. According to the plan, Hebei, Shandong and Henan should increase the reduction of independent coking enterprises according to the target that the ratio of coking capacity to steel capacity reaches about 0.4 by the end of December 2020. Shandong and Henan actively promoted the reduction of carbon production lines for aluminum below 100000 tons. In Tianjin and Shandong, more efforts should be made to renovate the chemical industry park, promote the closure or relocation of the chemical enterprises in the environmentally sensitive areas and those failing to meet the safety and environmental protection standards.

It is also proposed in the plan that the transformation of ultra-low emission in iron and steel industry should be carried out with high standards. All localities should strengthen organizational leadership and implement the opinions on promoting the implementation of ultra-low emissions in the iron and steel industry. All provinces (cities) should speed up the formulation of ultra-low emission transformation plan for local iron and steel industry, systematically organize the ultra-low emission transformation work, and determine the annual key project. By the end of December 2019, Hebei Province has completed 100 million tons of ultra-low emission transformation of iron and steel industry, and Shanxi Province has completed 15 million tons. For ultra-low emission transformation, the plan states that mature and applicable environmental protection transformation technology shall be selected according to plant conditions. Among them, wet electrostatic precipitator, membrane filter bag type precipitator, filter cartridge precipitator and other advanced technologies are encouraged to be adopted for dust removal facilities; measures such as capacity increase and efficiency improvement shall be taken for flue gas desulfurization, flue gas bypass shall be cancelled, and flue gas after purification shall be encouraged to return to the original chimney for emission. According to the plan, if the enterprise meets the requirements of ultra-low emission after assessment and confirmation, it shall implement incentive policies such as tax and differential electricity price according to relevant regulations, and implement differential emergency emission reduction measures during heavy pollution weather warning period. As for the enterprises that cheat in the assessment, once found, the relevant preferential policies will be cancelled, and the enterprise emergency performance level will be reduced to level C.