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.
The No.1 blast furnace was banked on August 14 due to some defects, but it has been back online and Nippon Steel has been closely monitoring its operational stability and safety, the official said, declining to disclose the exact problem the furnace had incurred.
“We do not have a specific date for its return to the normal operation, as for us, safety is the priority, and we have enough semi-steel stocks at the plant, and we can use the products form other works to fulfill deliveries if needed, so not much disruption to the customers,” he added.
Steel traders in Tokyo and Osaka believed that the defects were probably because of the long running of the furnace, which will take time and money for such maintenance and repairs to be completed. The furnace has been operating since April 1995, according to the company website.
“It maytake a couple months for the furnace to go back to its normal production level,” an Osaka-based trader predicted.
Meanwhile, Kure hosts two blast furnaces with the other having an inner volume of 2,080 cu meters and operating since November 2003, but it has been banked since February 15 in response to the overall demand decline in Japan, as reported.
Nippon Steel does not reveal its production capacity by blast furnace but the two at Kure produced a total of 2.31 million tonnes of crude steel during the fiscal 2019 (April 2019-March 2020), down 15.4% on year, as reported.
The Kure works was initially belonging to Nisshin Steel, Japan’s fourth largest integrated mill that was fully acquired by Nippon Steel on April 1 2020, and Nippon Steel will completely shut the Kure section by September 2023, as disclosed in its restructuring plan in February.
“These aged furnaces might be one of the reasons for Nippon to close the Kure section, which will help it to trim the cost and enable it to lift the output at other furnaces for higher efficiency,” the second trader added.
A Nippon Steel official confirmed that once closed, the products such as automotive sheets and other carbon steel products will be allocated to its other plants.
Nippon Steel operates a total of 15 blast furnaces across Japan, and six has been banked or relined since February on the shrinking demand for steel at home and abroad, Mysteel Global understood from the company releases.
This article has been published under an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.
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