China tightens regulations on iron & steel industry

China announced a series of new regulations on Monday to fine-tune its iron and steel industry in a bid to make it more energy efficient and environmentally friendly.

The announcement, published by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said the new regulations relate to stricter requirements on quality of products, energy consumption, emissions, technology and equipment standards, production scale as well as security and social responsibility for iron and steel companies.

The new regulations rule that iron and steel companies are forbidden to produce a list of obsolete products, including hot rolled silicon steel and twisted steel of primary level.

Further, powder dust emissions, sulfur dioxide emissions and water consumption for making per ton of steel should not exceed 1.19 kilogram (kg), 1.63 kg and 4.1 cubic meters separately.

For equipment capacity requirements, shaft furnaces should be more than 400 cubic meters, converter or electric furnaces should be above 30 tonnes, while high-alloy steel furnaces should be over 10 tonnes.

As for admittance standards of production scale, a company which produces common steel products should have an annual capacity of no less than one million tonnes in 2010, while a company who produces special steel products should have an annual capacity of 300,000 tonnes or above.

Further, any serious accidents within two years could deprive a company a production qualification, according to the announcement, adding that work safety and employees' payments should be guaranteed.

The new regulations, which is said to be formulated in line with the developments of the country's iron and steel industry, will be enforced on October 1, 2012. Meanwhile, the old one, which was formulated in June 2010, will be expired.