Posted on 20 Dec 2022
South Korean steelmaker Posco Steel restarted its No. 2 hot-rolling plant on 15 December.
The production capacity of the steel plant is 5 million tonnes/year, accounting for 33% of Posco's total production capacity of 14.8m t/y, Kallanish notes. The HRC produced by the steel plant will be used as raw materials for subsequent cold rolling, galvanizing, stainless steelmaking and plating processes, supplying to the construction, automotive and machinery industries.
Psoco pointed out that the rapid recovery of the No.2 HR plant was thanks to the support of India's JSW, which handed over the motor drives of an HR plant currently under construction to Posco. Otherwise it could have taken up to a year or even more to replace these motor drives.
With the restart of the No. 2 HR production plant, 13 of Posco's 18 plants have resumed normal operations. They are respectively, No.1 and No.2 HR plant, No.2 and No.3 plate plant, No.1, No.2, No.3 and No.4 wire rod plant, No.1 and No.2 cold-rolling plant, No.2 and No.3 electrical steel plate plant.
At the end of December this year, Posco plans to see the restart of the No. 2 stainless steel plant and No. 1 electrical steel plant. In January 2023, a stainless steel cold rolling line and an electroplating line at Posco Steel are planned to resume operations, helping the mill to a full recovery.
However, Posco will not restart the No.1 plate production plant, which had been damaged by floods in September, taking into account medium and long-term demand fluctuations and the production efficiency of the plant (see Kallanish passim). The plant was built in July 1972 with an annual production capacity of 600,000 t/y.
Source:Kallanish
