Nippon Steel's 'core European hub' to host new EAF

Just weeks away from bringing a steel firm in Slovakia comfortably under its own umbrella, Japan's Nippon Steel Corp has announced that U.S. Steel Kosice, s.r.o. (USSK), based in Saca, Kosice in Slovakia and purportedly the largest steelmaker in Central and Eastern Europe, has received funding from the EU Modernisation Fund to help build a new electric-arc-furnace (EAF) and a new air separation unit (ASU) at the Kosice steel works.

The EAF, with a production capacity of 1.6 million tonnes/year, will be operated together with existing blast furnace facilities at the works and should be commissioned in 2030, Nippon Steel announced on September 16. The ASU – needed to improve energy efficiency and reduce CO2 emissions – will start