Shanxi to Remove Old Ferroalloy Facilities

The Shanxi government will work harder to eliminate out-of-date facilities in the local ferroalloy sector in 2011-15. The province will shut down all the calcium carbide electric furnaces with transformer capacity below 12,500 kilovolt-amperes, ferroalloy electric furnaces below 6,300 kilovolt-amperes as well as silicon-, calcium-alloying and silicon-, calcium-, barium- and aluminum-alloying electric furnaces below 1,500 kilovolt-amperes this year, further break down every ferroalloy furnace below 6,300 kilovolt-amperes by 2012 and every silicon-, calcium-alloying and silicon-, calcium-, barium- and aluminum-alloying electric furnace by 2013. From January to November, Shanxi produced 1.37 million tons of ferroalloy, an increase of 51.1 percent from a year earlier, 6.2 percent of the country's total output. The province eliminated a total of 384,800 tons of ferroalloy capacity over the past five years.