Some Chinese rebar being produced from scrapped rebar and sold for construction use does not meet national quality standards, raising concerns about the quality of construction in some projects, Kallanish notes.

According to a report on China Central Television’s "315 Gala" programme, some market participants have obtained scrapped rebar from sources such as demolished buildings and sold them as brand-new products after processing. After heating, elongation and cutting, the scrap steel bars were processed into thinner new steel bars and sold to construction sites in the surrounding area.

The person in charge of the processing plant told reporters the rebar is produced mainly in 10mm, 12mm, and 14mm diameters. The sales price is about CNY 4,000/tonne ($615/t). The processing plant is able to refurbish more than 30,000 tonnes/year of scrapped bar.

The plant is located in Jieyang, Guangdong Province. It obtained its qualification in July last year to produce steel bar from billet. Instead, however, it has been using thicker rebar recovered from demolished building and processing into thinner rebar. By downloading certificates of conformity published by other steel mills online, these processors and their sales staff pass off their own steel bar as being produced by the steel mills.

It is not known how many such processing bases exist across the country, but reports in recent years have also shown that such processing plants also exist in other provinces.