OREANDA-NEWS. June 06, 2012.  As shown in the recent professional review of one of its technical transformation project, Baosteel Ltd will make huge investment during the 12th 5-year Plan Period to build silos, closed stockyard, circular stockyard etc in raw material area, power plants and so on to gradually put coals and other materials in silos or storage sheds so as to prevent raised dust and to thoroughly improve the environment of these areas. This will be a major measure of Baosteel Ltd for its comprehensive ecological improvement, involving clean production at source and strict process control and end-of-pipe treatment.

For the 12th 5-year Plan Period, the government has raised higher requirement on enterprise environmental protection. As a listed company, Baosteel Ltd faces growing environmental protection pressures. At the same time, it also faces difficulties including aging of its major environmental protection equipment. In the context of the low-profit times for the iron & steel industry, Baosteel Ltd sticks to practicing environmental business strategy, emphasizing both energy conservation and environmental protection, aiming at better environmental protection index and improved environmental performance.

Our efforts in clean production started from the iron & steel sector. At the end of the 11th 5-year Plan Period Baosteel Ltd gradually started its clean production in coking and sintering areas. The turnaround coke ovens currently in construction in the iron making plant of Baosteel Ltd adopts multiple energy saving and environment protection technologies that are most advanced in the world, to tackle the problem of environment pollution from conventional coke oven production but also to conserve energy significantly. Its energy consumption per tone of coke is 106 kg standard coal, 19 kg lower than the average level of the industry. Now the coke oven is undergoing drying out, scheduled to go into production in July. The turnaround coke ovens, when built and put into use, will gain rich experiences in applying energy conservation and environment protection technologies for future rolling-on coke oven revamping and construction of Baosteel Ltd.

Last year, Baosteel Ltd started a package comprehensive revamping plan of the iron making plant sintering system, for the purpose of conserving energy, protecting the environment, and improving cost efficiency. The system revamping will adopt new technologies and new processes for energy conservation, emission reduction, and better cost efficiency, thus improving the overall clean production level of the sintering process. According to the plan, upon completion of all the projects involved, clean production will be achieved, when pollutant emission from the sintering process including dust and sulfur dioxide are reduced considerably; sintering dust is 100% recycled, and fugitive dust emission in sintering area can reduce by more than 20%.

For steel making area, Steel Making Plant II slag processing rollers revamping, started last year, was finished last month. Based on the design, over 85% original slag can be processed without falling to the floor. Now the slag processing rollers revamping for Steel Making Plant I has started, scheduled to finish by next June. Then, Baosteel Ltd will be able to achieve the clean production mode of "slags off the ground" for most slags.

The process control applies information technology. Baosteel Ltd built an environment monitoring center last year for online monitoring of flue gas, dust fall, noise, etc from 170-odd major emission sources in the whole plant, giving early warning for those exceeding the index, and requiring professional management departments to follow up the improvement measures and effects. Further more, in close observation of Shanghai municipal requirement on environment air quality, Baosteel Ltd became the first domestic steel maker to make and implement the Plant Area Air Quality Monitoring and Evaluation Plan.

On the basis of phase I solid waste comprehensive utilization & management system, Baosteel Ltd carried out the phase II upgrading modification project, which was put into operation last month. The operation of the system realized fine control of the whole process of the solid waste treatment, which regulates the solid waste treatment process flow, improves the management efficiency, but also wards off the risk of secondary pollution during the treatment.

As clean production and process control are enhancing, the end-of-pipe treatment of Baosteel Ltd for the 12th 5-year Plan Period is going from the easy to the difficult and complicated. After accomplishing last year revamping of the power plants, sintering, desulfurization and dust collection projects, this year Baosteel Ltd started power plant fuel coal line denitration project and the scientific research tackling project for in-depth treatment of chemical and steel rolling waste water. Upon completion of the former, the NOx emission will reduce by 5,000-odd tons per year; while the latter is a key scientific research tackling project for Baosteel Group in the 12th 5-year Plan Period, aiming to further improve steel rolling waster water recycling efficiency and reduce the effluent.