Hebei's Steel Industry: Direct Employment of Nearly 400,000 People; Number of Steel Smelting Enterprises Reduced from 123 to 39; Steelmaking Capacity Decreased from 320 Million Tons to 199.9 Million Tons! 37 A-Level Environmental Performance Companies

Iron is the first pillar industry of Hebei Province. In recent years, Hebei has been actively promoting the steel industry towards high-end, intelligent, and green development, optimizing and upgrading steel products, accelerating the intelligent transformation of the industry, and exploring green and low-carbon transformation to promote high-quality industrial development.

On April 19th, Wang Yunlei, an engineer of the second galvanizing production line at Hebei Steel Pohang, inspected the operation of the intelligent marking robot. "It's like a thin nail that can support an elephant dancing on it," said Li Qing, the head of the production department of Hebei Steel Pohang Automobile Plate Co., Ltd. in Tangshan City, Hebei Province, when introducing the characteristics of the company's zinc-iron alloy (GA) car plate.

Thinness, width, and hardness are the important characteristics of GA car plates. "Our products can be as thin as 0.3 millimeters, as wide as 1860 millimeters, and have a maximum strength of up to 980 megapascals," said Li Qing.

The innovative breakthroughs of Hebei Steel Pohang are a microcosm of the high-quality development of Hebei's steel industry. Steel is the first pillar industry of Hebei Province, and in 2023, the added value of the local steel industry accounted for 26.45% of the province's large-scale industry, achieving direct employment of nearly 400,000 people.

In recent years, Hebei has reduced capacity, adjusted structure, and transformed energy. Up to now, the number of steel smelting enterprises in the province has been reduced from 123 in 2011 to 39, and the steelmaking capacity has been reduced from a peak of 320 million tons in 2011 to 199.9 million tons. The local steel industry has basically formed a layout along the iron and coastal areas, with continuous improvement in modernization level, and is moving towards a high-end, intelligent, and green high-quality development path.

Encouraging technological transformation of enterprises and promoting high-end products, in April this year, Hebei Steel Pohang received a sample from a well-known car company - a car part made from the first batch of GA car plates supplied by its own company. This marks Hebei Steel Pohang's smooth entry into the supply chain system of this car company.

"The company applies high-strength ultra-thin steel process technology, which can ensure the safety of the car while reducing the overall weight of the car body by 10% to 20%, significantly reducing the car's energy consumption," said Zhou Guoping, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chief Operating Officer of Hebei Steel Pohang. Since the project was put into production in October last year, the enterprise has quickly gained the recognition of well-known car companies, accelerated the integration into the global automotive industry chain, and continuously increased market share.

Song Xiangdang, Deputy Director of the Hebei Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology, said that Hebei encourages enterprises to implement technological transformation, promote the optimization and upgrading of steel products, and accelerate the development towards high-quality special steel, high-quality special steel, and special alloy steel, significantly increasing the added value of products.

In recent years, high-end steel products in Hebei have continued to emerge. Not long ago, the 14mm and 16mm ultra-thick specification beam steel developed and produced by Tangshan Iron and Steel Company of Hebei Steel Group was successfully delivered to customers, filling the domestic gap in the field of ultra-thick specification beam steel. "This product is custom-produced for the first time according to customer needs and will be used to manufacture the car body protective parts of special vehicles such as transport vehicles and tractors," said the person in charge of Tangshan Iron and Steel Company.

In addition, Chengde Vanadium and Titanium New Material Co., Ltd. independently developed and produced 42mm diameter vanadium-containing special steel, and the 2060mm section stainless steel composite coil plate newly developed by Handan Steel Company of Hebei Steel Group broke the domestic record...

Currently, the proportion of high-end varieties of steel in Hebei Steel Group is nearly 80%, an increase of nearly 50% compared to 10 years ago, with more than 1,000 direct supply customers for high-end products. In terms of automotive steel, the group has successfully developed 17 series of plate products and 6 series of special steel products," said Yu Yong, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of Hebei Steel Group.

Technological upgrades have promoted the continuous increase in the proportion of high-end steel products. Data provided by the Hebei Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology shows that in 2023, the output proportion of high-end steel products such as cold-rolled thin wide steel, extra-thick plate, electrical steel, and coated plate in Hebei Province reached 19.8%, an increase of 3.7 percentage points compared to 2022.

Led by technological innovation, the industry's intelligent upgrade has accelerated. What does an intelligent steel plant look like? Enter the finishing workshop of Hebei Steel Group Shi Steel Company, and you will see robots with clear division of labor in each process link, grinding, bundling, labeling, and storing the rolled bars, and the entire process is seamless.

Shi Steel is a steel enterprise with a history of more than 60 years, originally located within the second ring road of the main urban area of Shijiazhuang. With the development of the city and the upgrade of production technology, in 2020, the Shi Steel environmental protection relocation project with a total investment of 10.2 billion yuan and an annual output of 2 million tons of special steel was put into production in Jingxing Mining Area, Shijiazhuang.

Moving out to a new world. The robot system for special steel bar finishing operation led by Shi Steel was supported by the national key research and development plan "Intelligent Robots" special project. In February 2023, the project passed the final acceptance evaluation of the Ministry of Science and Technology.

On April 7th, workers at the chemical analysis center of Shi Steel Company of Hebei Steel Group were debugging the quick analysis robot. Looking at the news reporter Zhang Wenjin took a picture.

"38 robot employees were put into operation, realizing the cluster operation of finishing robots, and the finishing workshop has also become one of the demonstration scenes of the 'National Intelligent Manufacturing Demonstration Factory'." said Wang Huiqing, a technical expert at Shi Steel.

Using 5G, industrial Internet, blockchain and other technologies, Shi Steel has built an integrated digital system covering equipment management, automatic control, quality control, etc., and also provides system and data support for the large-scale application of robots. At present, Hebei Steel Group has 4 national enterprise technology centers, 6 provincial enterprise technology centers, 29 provincial and ministerial key laboratories and engineering technology research centers, and the intensity of R&D investment is maintained at more than 3%.

In recent years, Hebei Province has taken technological innovation as the lead, vigorously implemented the special action plan for the digital transformation of the steel industry, and promoted the steel industry towards digitalization and intelligence. The integration of informatization and industrialization in Hebei's steel industry ranks first in the manufacturing industry of the province, with the digitalization rate of production equipment and the networking rate of digitalized production equipment at 53.9% and 59.8% respectively.

Last June, the Hebei Province Steel Industry Digital Transformation Alliance was officially established in Shijiazhuang, covering all steel enterprises in Hebei. Zhang Xiaohui, director of the Steel Industry Office of the Hebei Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology, said that the alliance will continue to organize service organizations and industry experts to enter enterprises for docking and exchange, customize transformation plans, and promote the in-depth development of the digital transformation of the steel industry in Hebei.

Implementing environmental performance management to promote green and low