Posted on 22 Jun 2021
Beijing’s request for the steel industry to reach carbon emission peak by 2025, or five years ahead for the whole nation, is very challenging, but this will be a hardcore target to be conquered, Li Xinchuang, president and chief engineer of China Metallurgical Industry Planning and Research Institute, shared at the SEAISI 50th Anniversary e-Conference & Exhibition on June 18.
Beijing’s commitment to peak carbon emission by 2030 and to be carbon neutral by 2060 will involve serious revolutions in production, consumption, technology, energy, and economy, all of which will lead to profound impact and call for serious upgrading on the steel industry – the country’s second largest carbon emitter that are responsible for nearly 17% of the nation’s total, he said.
To meet the 2025 deadline, Beijing will still stick to realizing ultra-low emission at 80% of the country’s steelmaking capacity, though there is still a long way to go, as among the country’s 229 mills with 620 million tonnes/year of crude steel production capacity that working on to meet the stringent control standards, only 16 had fully or partially hit the targets by the end of 2020, according to him.
“Now in China, roughly over 650 million t/y steel capacities are undergoing rectification through new facilities or related development to reach ultra-low emission standards” he said, without specifying the country’s total steelmaking capacity or the ratio of the ongoing efforts.
China, nevertheless, has not been dragging the progress of green steel in the world, instead, it has been leading the way, Li clarified the misunderstanding, pointing out that the country has imposed the most stringent environmental emission standards at its steel industry among its global counterparties, and has also been working on low-carbon smelting technologies such as hydrogen metallurgy, he added.
Other than the technological challenges, the hardship in the rectification in China’s steel industry also lies in the fact that it has to shoulder the crucial responsibility in supporting the domestic economy and global steel market, Li added.
Last year, for example, China’s domestic finished steel demand reached 985 million tonnes, with the self-sufficiency rate at nearly 98%, clearly being the world’s largest and most active domestic market, and its crude steel output, in tandem, rose 7% on year to 1.065 billion tonnes, or accounting for 57% of the world’s total production.
China’s construction sector, a core driving force in China’s steel consumption, alone consumed 575 million tonnes of finished steel, or up 69 million tonnes on year in 2020, according to Li.
Steel industry, thus, has been essential in supporting China’s rapid economic development. “Without a strong steel industry, we wouldn’t have a strong national economy,” he stated, but “China’s steel industry has also always been blamed by the authorities and the citizens for its heavy pollution and high energy consumption,” he pointed out.
“We do need to remember that the steel industry not only contributes to the national economy, it has created a lot of new jobs and many valued-added services to the other sectors,” he added, noting that last year, among the total revenue of the country’s 41 industrial sectors, the ferrous industry and steel-consuming sectors including machinery and equipment manufacturing and automaking accounted for about 44.5% of the total.
As for the world, China has become the world’s top steel producing country since 1996, now being the world’s top steel production and consumption hub, and it may well lead the global steel development for another century, Li projected.
Source:Mysteel Global
