Emissions in China’s steel industry increased by 13% y/y in January-February

Total emissions in China’s steel industry in January-February 2024 increased by 13% compared to the same period in 2023. This was reported by the China Steel Association (CISA).

Emissions of sulfur dioxide per ton of steel amounted to 0.19 kg/t (-12.6% y/y), smoke and dust – 0.20 kg/t (-9.7% y/y), nitrogen oxide – 0.35 kg/t (-9.1% y/y). Sulphur dioxide and particulate matter emissions decreased by 7.3% and 7.1%, respectively.

The total volume of water used by steel enterprises in January-February increased by 4% y/y – to 15.06 billion cubic meters. In particular, new water intake decreased by 0.7% y/y, while reuse increased by 4.1% y/y. The water reuse rate amounted to 98.4%, up 0.08ppt y/y.

Chinese steelmakers produced 13.7 million tons of steel slag in January-February, up 1.5% y/y. Blast furnace slag production increased by 1.7% y/y – to 35.99 million tons. The utilization rate of steelmaking slag was 98.7% (+0.45 percentage points y/y) and that of blast furnace slag was 97.9% (-0.18 percentage points y/y).

Blast furnace gas production amounted to 147.81 billion cubic meters, up 0.06% y/y, BOF gas production amounted to 13.499 billion cubic meters (+10.1% y/y), and coke oven gas production amounted to 9.02 billion cubic meters (+7.9% y/y). The blast furnace gas utilization rate was 98.9%, up 0.4 percentage points compared to January-February 2023, BOF gas utilization rate was 98% (-0.15 percentage points y/y), and coke oven gas utilization rate was 98.7% (+0.32 percentage points y/y).

As GMK Center reported earlier, China increased steel production by 0.6% in 2023 compared to 2022 to 1.019 billion tons. Thus, the downward trend in the country’s steel industry has stopped after two consecutive years of declining production.

Last year, the Chinese authorities did not introduce restrictions on steel production in line with ambitions to reduce CO₂ emissions, which helped to increase the volume of smelting and the revenue of local steelmakers. At the same time, in 2021-2022, the downward trend in the industry was supported by appropriate restrictions. Thus, for 2023 emissions increased by 7.8% y/y.