Small tissue mills in Mancheng still down despite lower smog alert level

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The administration of Baoding city, which covers Mancheng county, has issued its first red alert for severe air pollution this year.
A red alert is the most serious level in a four-tier air pollution warning system, followed by orange, yellow and blue. It imposes the toughest restrictions on activities that may worsen the smog.

Under the red alert, vehicles are only allowed on roads based on odd- or even-numbered license plates, plants are ordered to halt production or reduce emissions by 30%; and kindergartens and schools will be closed.

All coal-powered tissue mills in Mancheng county were shut down after the red alert came into force on December 1. Only a couple of gas-fueled plants were allowed to operate.

The alert level was lowered to yellow on December 5 as the air quality improved marginally, but the local authorities did not lift the ban on coal boilers with a capacity of no more than 10 tonnes/hour. Consequently, tissue producers must replace their small coal boilers with gas ones before resuming normal operations.

Mancheng has long been a hub for small tissue mills, with a total capacity of around 1.2 million tonnes/yr.

Some of the tissue producers there have been investing in new machines in order to survive the intensified crackdown on emissions.

Hebei Yihoucheng Commodity is installing a 25,000 tonne/yr tissue unit from Andritz which it plans to fire up in the second quarter of 2017, according to a company contact. It currently runs an identical TM and is one of the very few gas-powered mills in the county.

Baoding Yusen Paper started up a new 13,000 tonne/yr tissue PM from Weifang Hicredit Machinery in late November. The company brought two identical lines on stream in September 2015 and August 2016, respectively. It has signed up the same Chinese supplier to provide four 15,000-tonne/yr tissue PMs, to be commissioned in the first half of 2017.

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