Steelmakers back stricter manufacturing standards

DTI and DENR are forming a technical working group to ensure the alignment of policies and strategies for steelmaking with environmental standards and product quality

A technical working group will be created to ensure the alignment of policies and strategies for steelmaking.

A group of steelmakers voiced out support for the government’s move to tighten environmental standards for steelmaking and shift to modern and clean production technology.

The Philippine Iron and Steel Institute (PISI) said it backs the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ (DENR) agreement to review existing environmental standards and steelmaking technologies after reports that induction furnaces from China were still being set up in the Philippines.

In 2017, manufacturing giant China banned the use of induction furnaces for steelmaking on the account that the machines can be more pollutive and produces substandard quality steel products.

“We fully support the government’s effort to weed out substandard steel products in the market which are unsafe and have been produced using pollutive equipment,” PISI president Roberto Cola said in a statement.

In 2018, the ASEAN Iron and Steel Council (AISC) also issued an advisory against the importation of the obsolete production technology from China to member nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, particularly Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand, noting that these were not suitable for carbon steel production.

“These induction furnaces produce substandard quality steel products and are environmentally unfriendly as they emit uncontrolled harmful gases and particulates and consume higher electrical energy,” the AISC said in its position paper published last year.

The DTI and DENR are forming a technical working group (TWG) to ensure the alignment of policies and strategies for steelmaking with environmental standards and product quality.

The group will also review steel producers’ compliance with an online monitoring system linked to the DENR.

Additionally, the departments are looking at requiring the approval for all environmental compliance certificates (ECC) for critical heavy industries such as steelmaking and cement at a national level.

The TWG will likewise review proposed higher penalties on manufacturers that violate the terms and conditions under the ECC.

The DTI also said it will also review the Philippine Standard license certification procedures for steel products, as well as steel billets, to enable more intensive retail trade monitoring.