CISDI has won a major accolade from Zenith Nantong Steel in China’s Jiangsu Province.

It was named as a special contributor and praised for its ‘outstanding management team’ at an onsite ceremony staged by Zenith to celebrate its 22^nd anniversary and the success of Nantong plant’s move into operation.  

Speaking on behalf of the plant’s construction companies, CISDI chair Xuewen Xiao commented: “This was an arduous task for each and every one of the parties involved.

“We had to overcome many challenges along the way, including problems posed by the pandemic and extreme weather conditions. The teams involved demonstrated great determination and consistency throughout the building of this world-class coastal green, smart landmark, which will see its phase I achieve an annual output of 10 million tonnes.

“This project is a standout example of the construction speed which can be achieved in China.

“Zenith has achieved sterling results over the past 22 years. It is on the journey to low-carbon, greener and smarter production and CISDI, China’s technological pacesetter, will continue to support the plant’s sustainability upgrading.”

With a projected final production capacity of 20 million tonnes a year, Nantong Steel is the largest of its kind built by CISDI as it takes on full systems around the globe.

CISDI won the contract in January 2020 and broke ground in August 2020. The first tapping of hot metal occurred in March 2022 and liquid steel was tapped a month later.

CISDI’s technical assistance enabled the customer to produce its first rolled product in early April 2022 and the entire construction process took just 578 days - a record in China.

Another star milestone was the successive operation of three blast furnaces in 2022. A speedy start-up and ramp-up was achieved and the furnaces are achieving leading sector standards for crude steel production to site size ratio and for logistics costs per tonne of crude steel.

A major tech and solution partner for Nantong, CISDI carried out the plant’s master plan, design and EPC management and EPC-based service for its main production lines.

Applying its systematic solutions, and its vision for improving the plant’s competitiveness, CISDI built the greenfield Nantong as a world demo. It features the highest environmental, intelligent, energy efficiency, safety and quality standards.

A keystone of the project is CISDI’s unified industrial internet platform, which deeply integrates digital tech with lean production management.

This full-process Digital Factory is being operated from a centralised control centre five kilometres away from production areas. Industrial robots work onsite, replacing manpower. Consequently, labour productivity has hit a top sectoral level of 2,000 tonnes per person a year.

A national smart manufacturing benchmark, Nantong also achieved another first for China - salt recovery crystallisation.

CISDI designed the plant to operate with zero discharge of waste water, waste gas and solids and ultra-low emissions.

The entire plant’s water treatment system is recycled and its solid waste to energy rate surpasses 99 per cent.

All gas is recovered, bringing internal power generation efficiency to over 95 per cent.

Emission results are outperforming China’s ULE standard by around 40 per cent and all energy consumption indicators are top for the Chinese steel sector.

CISDI was honoured to be named Zenith Nantong’s special contributor

Aerial view of Nantong Steel in Jiangsu, China

Nantong’s zero liquid discharge project

Nantong’s smart upstream-ironmaking centralised control centre