Shanxi suspends approval of coking projects
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-06-03 15:07

Northern China's Shanxi Province has suspended approvals of new coking plants amid concerns over excessive investment in the industry, according to a just-closed meeting, which called for a rectification among local coking enterprises.

When the rectification is over, more rigid standards for new producers will be imposed by the provincial government and approvals will be only given by its standing meetings, said the meeting.

The measures taken by the local government aim at restraining an excessive production capacity in the coking industry, and accordingly to alleviate the more and more serious environmental pollution caused by coking.

Rising coke prices, along with both domestic and overseas surging demand, attracted the existing coke producers to blindly expand capacity, leading to a surprising waste of coking coal and even the risks of a market glut and financial problems.

Preliminary surveys showed that the existing and under-construction capacity of coke, a key raw material for steel makers, in Shanxi province has reached some 150 million tons per year, about 84 percent of the total in the country.

If all the under-construction projects were completed, 560 million tons of coking coal will be consumed annually and at such a speed, the reserve of coking coke in the province will run out 40 years later.

Meanwhile, coking firms in the province discharged 30 percent of pollutants existing in the air and 40 percent of that in the water, posing great potential risks to the health and lives of the locals.

A leading team, headed by the provincial governor, had been set up for rectification of both the existing and under-construction coking projects to resolve the widely-concerned issues related to coking.

Selective examination conducted by the local environmental protection departments in 2002 showed that a total of 105 coking producers with a capacity of 11 million tons were illegally established.

Thus all coking projects have to undergo rectification in the drive recently launched by the local government, and those set up without approval are the key targets for rectification.

Over the 10 past years, Shanxi Province has experienced a course of rectification for its coking industry from a clampdown on bee-hive coke production to gradually washing out small blast furnace coking factories.

The remaining bee-hive coke production was required to be shut down within a definite time in the drive while large-scale blast furnace coking factories were encouraged but rectified for improvement.

Last year, China produced 178 million tons of coke, up 20 percent from 2002, and accounting for 46 percent of the total throughput of the world.

During the same period, China exported 14.72 million tons of coke to over 51 countries and regions across the world, making up 60 percent of the total trade volume.

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