China will prohibit steel companies from producing hot rolled silicon steel and low strength rebar, says the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) in the revised requirements on the production and operation of iron and steel industry issued on June 15.
Hot rolled silicon steel has been listed among the country’s catalogue of steel products required to be eliminated because of serious damage to the environment during the production. China’s hot rolled silicon steel production capacity was about 1.3Mt in 2010 and fell to 899.5kt in 2011.
Earlier this year, MIIT and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development jointly issued guidelines on boosting the use of high-strength steel products. According to the guidelines, China will eliminate the use of 335MPa rebar in construction by 2013 and gradually raise the ratio for production and application of 500MPa rebar. High-strength products will take an 80% share in China’s rebar output and more than 65% use in domestic building bar consumption by the end of 2015. By then, the use of high-strength rebar will help reduce the weight of rebar used by 10Mt/y and correspondingly reduce consumption of iron ore by 16Mt.
Source: China Metals e-mail [email protected]