On December 20, Chinese steelmaker Xuanhua Iron and Steel Company, a subsidiary of leading Chinese steel producer Hebei Iron and Steel Group, announced that it has permanently shut down three 30-mt converters, which means it has eliminated 1.1 million mt of annual crude steel output.
The three 30-mt converters were built and put into production in the 1990s, and produced a total of 14.14 million mt of crude steel since then. The elimination of the three converters, added to the four 300 m3 blast furnaces previously eliminated, means that the company has successfully achieved its backward capacity elimination targets for the 11th five-year plan period.
In 2010 up to the end of September, Xuanhua Iron and Steel's energy savings were equal to 344,500 mt of coal, which is equivalent to 101 percent of the target set by the Hebei provincial authorities.