China's top steelmaking city deepens output curbs to fight smog

BEIJING (Reuters) - Steel mills and other industrial plants in China's top steelmaking city Tangshan were on Saturday ordered to make further output cuts in December, as part of emergency measures to fight smog.

The order from the local government came as it forecast several bouts of smog to blanket the region from Dec.9 until Dec.31, a state-backed local media reported citing a government statement.

Steel mills in the smog-prone city will need to shut their sintering capacity by 30-60 percent or even shut down based on their emission level, while coke plants must extend production time in order to churn out less dust.

Companies in construction materials, pharmaceutical, cement and mining industry were also asked to enforce emergency measures under second-level smog alerts, the second highest in the country's four-tier alarming system, in December.

Tangshan also set restrictions on diesel-fueled trucks delivering commodity materials to and from ports.

The city's mills have already complied with production restrictions ordered for the winter, with cuts averaging 30-35 percent, lower than 42 percent last year.

It has seen average concentration of lung-damaging small breathable particles, known as PM2.5, reach 90 micrograms per cubic metre, according to data from the China National Environmental Monitoring Centre.

China aims to keep national concentrations of PM2.5 below 35 micrograms by around 2035.

(Reporting by Muyu Xu and Beijing Monitoring Desk; Editing by Edmund Blair and Clelia Oziel)