Recent progress and development of ironmaking in China as of 2019: an overview

摘要

The recent progress and development of ironmaking in China as of 2019 was introduced. China has achieved a remarkable progress in eliminating outdated production capacity of steel industry, accomplishing the upper limit target ahead of schedule to reduce production capacity by 150 million tons during the thirteenth Five-Year plan. The blast furnaces are gradually forming a four-element burden structure of "sinter+pellet+lump+scrap", adapting to the increase of scrap supply in society. Large-scale blast furnaces has been the development trend, 25 blast furnaces with inner volume exceeding 4000 m3 are in operation by now. In order to cope with the environmental protection policy and benefit from the sufficient supply of steel, the direct reduction process has gained a booming development opportunity in China. Although the smelting reduction has formed a certain scale in China, it still cannot compete with blast furnace ironmaking process in terms of energy utilization efficiency.