JFE restarts Chiba No.6 BF after relining

Without fanfare, JFE Steel, Japan's second-largest integrated mill after Nippon Steel, has quietly restarted the No.6 blast furnace (BF) at the Chiba area of its East Japan Works near Tokyo after a relining and overhaul began last September and which cost some Yen 43 billion ($333 million).

The furnace is now in its third operating cycle, having been blown-in in June 1977 and restarted in May 1998 following its first relining. But unlike on that occasion when the unit's inner volume was increased to 5,153 cubic metres from 4,500 cu m initially, this time the volume