【ferro-alloys.com】

  Recently, the news that "Qingshan Group will develop steel plants in Zimbabwe" has attracted the attention of the industry. The main contents are as follows: Zimbabwe's minister of information announced on Tuesday night that Qingshan Group will start to develop an iron mine and build a carbon steel plant in Zimbabwe from May.

  Qingshan Group announced the investment agreement three years ago.

  Qingshan Group signed a $1 billion (S $1347 million) framework agreement with Zimbabwe in June 2018 to build a steel plant with an annual capacity of 2 million tons, Reuters reported.

  Since then, the company has been exploring and seeking more mining rights.

  Afrochine, a local subsidiary of Qingshan holdings, is already producing ferrochrome for steelmaking.

  As early as 2018, such news was indeed reprinted in the domestic media. On June 11, 2018, the Zhejiang provincial business delegation to Tianjin to attend the China Tianjin business forum signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Zimbabwean government on the investment of a US $1 billion steel plant project.

  The steel plant will be located in the central province. After completion, the annual steel output is expected to be 2 million tons.

  The foundation laying ceremony of iron ore mine and carbon steel plant will be held in May

  According to another source, Qingshan Group, through its subsidiary, afrochine, built another two ferrochrome furnaces in 2020 and will build them in May 2021

  Another furnace. The groundbreaking ceremony for the iron ore mine and carbon steel plant is scheduled to be held in manhize, mvuma, in May 2021

  Meanwhile, Zimbabwe has signed a memorandum of understanding with Castle Peak steel to invest in mining projects to produce stainless steel, the source said. Production during the transition period will start with carbon steel.

  Winston chitando, Zimbabwe's mining minister, said on Tuesday that Castle Peak now aims to produce 1 million tons of ferrochrome for local use and export as part of the project. The original target was to supply only 550000 tons of ferrochrome for local use.

  A few days ago, the news of Qingshan group's new ferrochrome production line in Indonesia, which is planned to be put into operation by the end of 2021, spread like wildfire. It is reported that there are four 36000kva chromite hot furnaces in normal production, with an annual capacity of 300000 tons. By the end of the year, 8 sets of 48000 submerged arc furnaces will be built, with an estimated additional capacity of 800000 tons.

  Qingshan group's overseas layout of stainless steel and raw material industry has laid a solid foundation for the development of the enterprise.

  Under the high pressure of "double control" in China, the development of high energy consumption industry is facing a bottleneck

 Especially in recent years, the domestic environmental protection policies for steel and raw material industry in high energy consumption industry are more and more strict, and the lack of nickel and chromium ore resources increases the development cost of stainless steel.

  On March 9, 2021, the development and Reform Commission of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the Department of industry and information technology, and the Energy Bureau issued the notice on several guarantee measures to ensure the completion of the "14th five year plan" energy consumption double control target tasks

  Establish a three-level energy consumption double control and hierarchical budget management mechanism at the county, league and autonomous region levels, work out five-year and annual energy consumption budget management plans, and incorporate the new energy consumption space and the energy consumption space released by the state, such as energy saving, potential tapping and elimination of backward ones, into the energy consumption budget management.

  From 2021, new capacity projects in 20 industries, including iron and steel (those that have entered the capacity replacement publicity stage, shall be implemented according to national regulations), ferroalloy, etc., will no longer be approved. If it is necessary to build, capacity and energy consumption reduction and replacement shall be implemented in the area.

  Accelerate the elimination of backward and excess capacity, and enterprises (equipment) listed in the "national industrial policy guidance directory" (version 2019) and stopped production for more than one year in 2020 are not allowed to carry out capacity replacement. The iron and steel and ferroalloy industries shall implement the following principles:

  Iron and steel: pig iron blast furnace with effective volume less than 1200 cubic meters, converter with nominal capacity less than 100 tons, and electric arc furnace with nominal capacity less than 100 tons (alloy steel 50 tons) will all be withdrawn by the end of 2023 in principle; those meeting the conditions can be replaced according to the national standards.

  Ferroalloy: submerged arc furnace of 25000 KVA and below (except special ferroalloy, the specific type of special ferroalloy shall be determined by the Department of industry and information technology), in principle, all of them will be withdrawn before the end of 2022; if they meet the conditions, they can implement capacity reduction and replacement according to 1.25:1.

  Combined with a series of "double control" measures issued by Inner Mongolia in 2021 and the major goals and tasks of "carbon peak" and "carbon neutralization" repeatedly mentioned during the two sessions, the domestic steel and ferroalloy industry will slow down significantly under the guidance of green development policy, and Qingshan group will layout overseas ahead of time, which will seize the opportunity for the enterprise to vigorously develop.

• [Editor:Catherine Ren]