Vietnam: Formosa Ha Tinh postpones steel price announcement amid blast furnace fire

• Disruption may tighten domestic flat steel supply, lift import prices
• Domestic price uptrend may strengthen, Hoa Phat had raised Nov prices before incident

A small fire near its No.1 blast furnace early Friday morning led Formosa Ha Tinh Steel (FHS) in north-central Vietnam to postpone its domestic steel price announcement planned for the same day, Mysteel Vietnam learnt.

The fire broke out in hot-blast stove No.3 serving the furnace at around 8:16 am on 4 September, prompting the emergency shutdown of the furnace, according to local media reports. Although the fire caused no injuries to staff and was completely extinguished soon after, market sources in Vietnam described the incident as relatively serious, with repairs potentially taking as long as two to three months.

The company, 70% owned by Formosa Plastics Group, 25% by China Steel Corp, and 5% by Japan’s JFE Steel, had not made any official announcement regarding the incident as of late Friday, and details of the damage, as well as the impact on blast furnace operations and production, remain unclear. However, news reports quote local authorities as saying the No.1 furnace can operate at 80% of capacity should repairs drag on.

FHS operates two 4,350 cu m blast furnaces with 7.1 million tonnes/year (mnt/y) molten iron capacity and has a hot-rolling capacity of approximately 5.1 (mnt/y). The company produced around 5.68 mnt of steel in 2025, according to Ha Tinh provincial authorities.

Along with Hoa Phat Group, FHS is one of Vietnam’s two major blast furnace mills, and market attention had been focused on whether it would follow Hoa Phat in raising prices for November shipments.

The disruption is expected to tighten Vietnam’s domestic flat steel supply and lift import prices in Vietnam, market sources suggested.

FHS has experienced several operational and safety incidents in the past. In October 2022, a gas-exhaust fan malfunction at its coking plant caused a localised fire and thick yellow smoke, although no casualties or property damage were reported and operations quickly resumed.

That same month, an explosion involving a blast-furnace gas pipeline at the plant’s power unit killed one contractor and injured two others, according to media reports.

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