Posted on 01 Jul 2025
Hyundai Steel, Korea’s largest rebar producer, is implementing a temporary shutdown of all its domestic plants in response to market stagnation. While the company cites facility maintenance as the reason, industry analysts interpret this as a comprehensive production reduction strategy to defend profitability in the face of prolonged construction industry recession.
According to steel industry sources on June 30, Hyundai Steel will halt operations at its Incheon rebar plant for 42 days from July 21 to August 31. This marks the second shutdown of the Incheon plant this year. In April, Hyundai Steel had already suspended operations at the Incheon plant for a month as part of production reduction measures to prevent a decline in rebar prices.
Hyundai Steel maintains that this production suspension is different from an artificial shutdown, as the company regularly conducts major summer maintenance. The Dangjin plant of Hyundai Steel has also been undergoing summer maintenance for 17 days from June 29 to July 15. However, for the Incheon plant, the regular maintenance period, typically lasting 2-3 weeks, has been significantly extended. This is seen as a strategy to reduce inventory and achieve a price increase effect through production cuts. The Incheon rebar plant is responsible for 1.5 million tons of Hyundai Steel’s annual rebar production capacity of 3.3 million tons.
Previously, Hyundai Steel suspended operations at its Pohang Plant 2, which mainly produces H-beams, from June 7 and entered an indefinite shutdown. With the Pohang Plant 2 followed by the Incheon and Dangjin plants coming to a halt, all of Hyundai Steel’s domestic rebar production facilities are facing shutdown, leading to expectations of a significant decrease in the production of long steel products used as construction materials. Hyundai Steel has also recently implemented an organizational restructuring, dissolving the long steel products business division and establishing a new sales division. This follows the company-wide declaration of emergency management last year, as it continues to respond to the deteriorating business conditions by streamlining its organization.
Source:Business Korea
