The Department of Industry and Information Technology of China’s Shandong Province has issued the capacity replacement details for Tai’an special steel project, relating to two 1,460 cubic meter blast furnaces, two 1,350 cubic meter blast furnaces, three 100 ton converters and one 105 ton converter due to be built by Shandong Shiheng Special Steel Group Co. (Shandong Shiheng Special Steel) in Feicheng city, Shandong Province. The capacities to be eliminated include one 450 cubic meter blast furnace, two 1,080 cubic meters blast furnaces, two 45 ton converters and one 60 ton converter belonging to Shandong Shiheng Special Steel, and two 1,350 cubic meter blast furnaces and two 120 ton converters belonging to Shandong Province-based Xinhua Special Steel Group Co., Ltd. Construction work on the new blast furnaces and converters begins in 2019, while they are due to start production operations in 2020.
Accordingly, the three new furnaces will have an annual iron-smelting capacity of 5.04 million mt, and the four new converters will have an annual steelmaking capacity of 4.65 million mt, replacing the five abovementioned blast furnaces which had a total annual iron smelting capacity of 5.07 million mt, and replacing the five abovementioned converters which had a total steelmaking capacity of 4.91 million mt.