According to the Central Economic Working Conference, China will further promote the ecological civilization and green low-carbon development, actively and steadily promote carbon peak and carbon neutralization, and accelerate creating green low-carbon supply chain.
On December 22, Luo Tiejun, the vice president of CISA stated that the steel industry is the main force of China’s economic and social realization of green and low-carbon transformation. Accelerating the creation of a green and low-carbon supply chain is not only a historic task for steel industry, but also the only choice for steel industry in the face of the new development stage.
Vice President Luo said that as of December 16, 110 steelmakers have completed or partially completed ultra-low emission retrofitting and assessment monitoring, in which 84 steelmakers completed the public notice of whole-process ultra-low emission retrofitting, involving around 414 million mt of crude steel production capacity, while 26 steelmakers completed the public notice of partial ultra-low emission retrofitting, involving 93 million mt of crude steel production capacity. The production capacity completed public notice accounted for over 50 percent of the overall crude steel capacity in China.
As for promoting steel industry’s ultra-low emission in China, Mr. Luo stressed that CISA will firmly oppose the indiscriminate promotion of ultra-ultra-low emissions by layering on additional standards. According to CISA, the investment in steel industry’s ultra-low emission amounted to RMB 450/mt ($63.4/mt), while the operating cost stood around RMB 200/mt ($28/mt). “Steelmakers have to comprehensively balance the relationship between economy, ecology and sustainability, and deal with the relationship between green water and blue sky and maintaining competitiveness of the steel industry in the global market,” said by Mr. Luo.
Moreover, China will strictly control the newly-increased steel capacity and reasonably control the crude steel output. Since the steel consumption volume has entered the peak zone in China, the decrease in steel output is inevitable. According to Mr. Luo, “Only the overall steel output being controlled will the ultra-low emissions make sense”.