Osaka Steel eyes early Sept restart of Kumamoto works

The Uto works suffered damage to buildings, cranes and other equipment in the large earthquake that hit Kumamoto on July 28, as Mysteel Global reported.

The West Japan Kumamoto Works, the only electric furnace plant in southern Kyushu, has a capacity of 300,000 tonnes/year of angles, unequal angles, channels, rebars and similar items. Shipments have been gradually resumed "as much as possible since August 17," Osaka Steel said in a disclosure.

The company expects rolling operations to restart around early September – about a week earlier than expected – and steelmaking from around mid-October 2026. "However, please note that these are all current forecasts and may change depending on factors such as aftershocks and the progress of equipment recovery," it stressed.

The disclosure did not give the source of the billets needed for the rolling operations, but this is likely to be the mill's own inventory and from outside supply. Osaka Steel has two large steel works near Osaka city – at Sakai and Kishiwada – that would be able to send the semis by coastal tramp, though port facilities near the Uto plant could be busy handling relief supplies.

Another possible source might be Japan's largest independent mini-mill, Tokyo Steel Manufacturing, whose large Kitakyushu Works in Fukuoka in western Kyushu was unaffected by the quake.

When announcing its pricing policy last week for September domestic sales, Tokyo Steel had made specific reference to the Kumamoto quake. "While carefully assessing the impact of the Kumamoto earthquake on the supply chain, we will prioritize responding to recovery and reconstruction demands," the company had said.

Whether this would stretch to supplying semis to help the West Japan Kumamoto Works recover and reconstruct is uncertain, however. The distance between Kitakyushu to Uto is about 120 kms.

Written by Russ McCulloch, russ.mcculloch@mysteel.com

Edited by Alyssa Ren, rentingting@mysteel.com