Steel producers in Tangshan, China’s largest steel-producing city, have already started to increase steel production gradually, SteelOrbis has been informed, as the local government has allowed mills to cut sintering capacity utilization rates just by 20 percent in August, as compared to 50 percent in July. Higher steel inventories, of rebar in particular, will put pressure on local prices in the coming weeks.
In late June, the local Public Security Bureau (PSB) set up a special inspection unit together with the Industry and Information Bureau and the Ecological Environment Bureau in Tangshan to launch an one-month campaign to inspect enterprises’ production cuts and restrictions in the steel industry, coking industry, cement industry and forging industry. The PSB in Tangshan has cracked down on unauthorized production and on illegal pollutant discharges. As of July 30, it had investigated 258 enterprises, found 19 problems, and punished 19 enterprises for violatations of regulations on production cuts and restrictions.