Posted on 09 Sep 2026
VinMetal, the steel manufacturing portfolio company of the Vietnam-based Vingroup conglomerate, reportedly plans to import up to 950,000 metric tons of recycled steel annually to help supply a sizable steelmaking complex it is building.
The Vietnam Investment Review (VIR) website has reported that VinMetal has filed for an environmental permit tied to the project that refers to the scrap import plan.
VIR says the permit is for a steelmaking campus being built in Ha Tinh, Vietnam, in the country's north central region. “This scrap volume will be transported by sea and stored in the factory’s outdoor scrap storage area,” writes Nguyen Kim of VIR.
The anticipated volume of scrap imports could be considered surprising for a project that does not appear to include electric arc furnace technology, according to one equipment supplier.
This May, London-based Primetals Technology announced its involvement in the VinMetal Ha Tinh project that includes supplying a basic oxygen furnace (BOF) Linz-Donawitz (LD) converter, a ladle furnace and vacuum treatment, a billet caster, a wire rod mill and a high-capacity, high-speed rebar mill.
A second melt shop in Ha Tinh will consist of another LD converter, a ladle furnace and vacuum treatment, a slab caster and a hot strip mill for flat steel production, according to Primetals.
The Primetals announcement refers to the project in Ha Tinh as a “greenfield investment in a large-scale integrated steel plant complex” but does not mention any production capacities.
The more recent VIR write-up says the complex has been designed to produce up to 3 million metric tons of hot-rolled coil steel per year, plus 1.4 million metric tons of steel bars and another 600,000 metric tons of steel wire annually, for a total of up to 5 million metric tons per year.
The article puts a $3.2 billion price tag on the project and says its backers want to begin construction before the end of this year so steel production can start in early 2031.
Primetals indicates much of the sheet steel to be made by VinMetal in Ha Tinh will be directed toward electric vehicles production in Vietnam by fellow Vingroup company VinFast.
Source:Recycling Today
