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Nippon Steel, Japan’s largest integrated steelmaker, has decided to restart another banked blast furnace, announcing on December 4 that a large unit north of Tokyo will be restarted in late January to lift hot metal supply in response to improving steel demand from auto manufacturers.
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Indonesia, with investments mainly from the Chinese enterprises, is progressing towards a new stainless steel producing hub with the production expected to surge 30% on year to 2.85 million tonnes in 2020, Dai Zhebin from Shanghai Xiangyu Superchain Supply Chain Co shared on December 3 at the 2021 Mysteel Ni-Cr-Stainless Steel-New Energy Annual Conference in Wuxi, East China’s Jiangsu province.
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Nippon Steel Engineering, the engineering arm of Japan’s largest steel producer, has received an order from Taiwan’s China Steel Corp to supply a large Coke Dry Quenching (CDQ) plant, NSE announced on November 26.
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Nippon Steel, Japan’s largest integrated mill, has restarted a banked blast furnace located in the Kimitsu Area of its East Nippon Works in Chiba prefecture, near Tokyo, to respond to improving steel demand from consumers, especially auto makers.
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Japan’s all kinds of steel exports for October fell 13% on year to about 2.47 million tonnes, or the sixth consecutive month posting an on-year decline, mainly as the Japanese integrated mills had been prioritizing supplies to domestic customers, Mysteel Global understood from the preliminary data released by Japan’s Ministry of Finance on November 18.
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Japan’s sales of carbon steel products for both the domestic market and export in September rose 5.6% on year to about 5.23 million tonnes, according to the latest data released by the Japan Iron & Steel Federation (JISF) on November 16. “A clear recovery in sales has finally appeared,” a JISF official commented.
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China Baowu Steel Group, the top steel mill in China and almost matching ArcelorMittal globally in production capacity, has passed the final hurdle towards getting a 51% stake in Taiyuan Iron & Steel Group (TISCO), with the final approval of the related authorities, and this will also enable it to soon pass the targeted 100 million tonnes/year installed capacity one year in advance, Mysteel Global understands
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JFE Steel, Japan’s second largest integrated mill, will start relining the No.6 blast furnace at the Chiba area of its East Japan Works much sooner than the mill had initially scheduled, saying that by starting the work early it can start cutting production costs sooner, JFE announced on November 9.
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Nippon Steel, Japan’s largest integrated mill, plans to lift the capacity utilization of its steelmaking to 80% over the second half (October 2020 – March 2021) of the fiscal 2020, from the 60-70% in the first half in response to better domestic demand mainly from the auto sector, the company announced on November 6.
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Kobe Steel, Japan’s third largest integrated mill, adjusted upward its crude steel output target for fiscal 2020 (April 2020 - March 2021) by 4.6% or 250,000 tonnes from the projection in August to 5.65 million tonnes on the anticipation of better demand from the domestic auto sector and related customers for the rest of the FY20.
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China’s central government will issue an updated version of its steel capacity guideline by the end of the year, aimed at further slimming down steel capacity nationwide while promoting more environmentally-friendly steel production and industry integration through merger and acquisition activity, according to a October 22 release from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
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Tsingshan Group (Tsingshan), the world’s leading stainless steel producer headquartered in East China’s Zhejiang province, is planning to establish a new 4 million tonnes/year stainless steel project in Yangjiang city in South China’s Guangdong province, in partnership with a state-owned investment company Guangdong Guangxin Holdings Group Co (Guangxin), the steelmaker has announced.
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Mergers and acquisitions since 2016 have grown China’s Baowu Steel Group (Baowu) into the world’s top steel producer as well as hitting its ambitious target of a 100 million tonnes/year steelmaking capacity one year ahead of schedule, and M&As will be a main theme in the company’s next five-year development, Chen Derong, the company chairman, sent a clear message.
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A large integrated steel works project in Malaysia being promoted by Hebei Xinwu’an Iron & Steel Group (Xinwu’an Steel), a steel producer based in North China’s Hebei province, has just received approval from Malaysia’s Ministry of International Trade and Industry, according to a recent release from China’s Ministry of Commerce (MoC). Construction on the 10 million tonnes/year works project is about to start, the MoC release said.
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Kobe Steel, Japan’s third largest integrated steelmaker, has decided to lift its wire rod and bar prices for the first time since June 2019, raising both the prices by Yen 10,000/tonne ($95/t) for October deliveries to both its domestic and overseas customers, as input costs have been rising, a company official confirmed on September 16.
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The company reported an increase in crude steel production volume by 6% and improvement in capacity utilization rate from the previous month.
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The capacity utilization rate of the 126 blast furnaces in Tangshan, North China’s Hebei province, had been gradually easing from the year’s high of 91.2% in the past three weeks to 87.5% by September 3, as the local authority had intensified curbing on local steel mills, a key source of air pollution, Mysteel’s latest survey showed.
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Vietnam’s Hoa Phat Group plans to commission the No.4 blast furnace at its Hoa Phat Dung Quat Iron & Steel Integrated Complex (Dung Quat Steel) in Central Vietnam in early 2021, Hoa Phat announced in an August 31 media release. Once the furnace is operating stably, the group’s total crude steel output will reach 8 million tonnes/year, making Hoa Phat the largest steel producer in Vietnam, it said.
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Nippon Steel, Japan’s largest integrated mill, has reignited the halted blast furnace with an inner volume of 2,650 cu meters on August 20 at its Kure area of Setouchi Works in western Japan after a halt over August 14-19, and its steel production has not been affected much, a company official confirmed on August 28.
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Hebei Iron & Steel Group Co (HBIS) is planning to gradually commission its greenfield steelworks Laoting Iron & Steel Co (Laoting Steel) in Laoting, a coastal county in Tangshan city, North China’s Hebei province next month, according to an August 21 announcement from HBIS’s Shanghai-listed arm.
