Hoa Phat Group, the largest steel manufacturer in Vietnam, has hot commissioned the second of four converters that will form the core of the company’s new 4 million tonnes/year steelworks under construction at Dung Quat in Quang Ngai province in South-central Vietnam.
The 120-tonne converter, the No.1, was hot commissioned in late September, according to an October 9 announcement from Metallurgical Corporation of China (MCC), the building contractor of the new Dung Quat integrated complex.
The No.2 converter was brought online two months ago in July, according to an announcement from the German plant maker SMS Group. SMS is supplying the four converters, providing with engineering services, supervising erection and commissioning activities, and training Hoa Phat staff. SMS noted that the converters are equipped with state-of-art electrical, automation and process guidance systems.
The two converters already commissioned are a key part of Hoa Phat’s first phase project, which upon completion, will be capable of producing 1 million t/y of steel for construction use and 1 million t/y of high-quality steel, according to announcements from both MCC and China’s Ministry of Commerce (MoC).
At the time of its award of the contract by Hoa Phat in July 2017, SMS had said commissioning of the first two converters was scheduled for 2018, while converters three and four (under Dung Quat’s second-stage expansion) were planned to be commissioned this year. In its recent announcement SMS gave no explanation for the delay.
Besides the four converters, the Dung Quat steelworks’ steelmaking plant will eventually host three LF-type refining furnaces and other affiliated facilities such as those for desulfurization, dedusting, water processing, and power generation, MoC’s post said.
The second stage at Dung Quat will have 2 million t/y hot-rolled coil capacity after completion, the posts indicated. The whole complex will occupy a site sprawling to some 373 hectares and is costing VND 60 trillion (around $2.65 billion) to construct. In September 2016 the Vietnamese government withdrew approval for the project for a number of reasons but the project was reactivated in February 2017, according to the MoC’s post.
Once operating, the Dung Quat steelworks will join other Hoa Phat steel or steel-related companies including Hoa Phat Steel Sheet in Pho Noi in Hung Yen province, west of Danang in central Vietnam, where earlier this year a new hot-dip galvanizing line was commissioned. The line has a capacity of over 350,000 t/y of galvanized and galvalume steel coils for use in construction and home appliances, Mysteel Global understands.
Over January-September this year, Hoa Phat Group produced nearly 2 million tonnes of construction steel, up 16% on the year, of which 191,600 tonnes or 10% was exported, higher by 32% on the year, as reported.
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