The State Council of China has issued an Action Program on Energy Conservation and Carbon Reduction for 2024-25, stating that China will strengthen the regulation of steel capacity and production outputs. Moreover, China will strictly implement the replacement of iron and steel capacity, strictly prohibit new iron and steel capacity under the name of machining, casting, ferroalloys etc., and strictly prevent the resurgence of low-quality long steel production capacity.
Meanwhile, newly constructed and expanded steel smelting projects will be required to reach the energy efficiency benchmark level and the environmental performance level A. At the same time, in the first three years of the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), regions lagging behind in the completion of energy saving and carbon reduction targets should be prohibited from adding new steel capacity in the remaining two years of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2024-2025).