China’s top steel hub will join the campaign to ensure blue skies for Beijing’s Winter Olympics next year.
The move will cap output and ordering other measures to slash pollution.
Tangshan a coastal town will extend steel curbs to March next year with air population falling by at least 40 percent.
The city’s steelmakers account for 8% of global output.
Steel mills in Tangshan will have to keep in place production curbs ordered this year but which are due to expire on Dec. 31, according to Mysteel. Other measures to boost air quality include curbs on heavy vehicles and cement production, and switching more transport to clean fuels.
Calls to Tangshan’s environmental office weren’t answered
The Olympics curbs come amid a gathering nationwide push to reduce steel output after production smashed records in the first half of the year. Mills in Tangshan — which churned out 144 million tons in 2020 — will have to reduce production by 12.4 million tons this year, while the broader Hebei province is aiming for a 21.7 million-ton reduction.
When Beijing hosted the Summer Olympics in 2008, authorities shut a high amount of factories in the industrial regions near the capital with the move titled “Olympic Blue.”
14 years on, it doesn’t seem like much has changed.
