Steel Market Production Increases – China Steel Corp plans to begin production at the new 1.2 mtpy Vietnamese CRC JV by year-end 2013 and it will have capacity for 300,000 tpy of hot-dipped galvanized, 200,000 tpy of NGO silicon steel, and 300,000 tpy of pickled and oiled.

Steel Market Production Increases – Thai steelmaker G Steel believes it is close to receiving financing for a “raw material supply facility” that will allow it to re-start HRC production at its 1.8 mtpy Rayong facility and 1.5 mtpy GJ subsidiary in Chonburi. The company estimates that it will restart production in February and will ramp-up to full production over four months; the plants have been idled since early August.

Steel Market Production Increases – Chinese steelmaker Baogang has plans to upgrade the efficiency of its wide hot strip mill No. 1 at the Baoshan facility in Shanghai by installing a new descaler by mid-2013, with a sizing press and roughing stand scheduled for mid-2014.

Steel Market Production Cuts – Vietnam-based Pomina Steel Corp announced that the “Pomina 3” project for a new longs rolling mill is now on hiatus. Pomina has 1.5 mtpy of billet capacity after commissioning a new plant in March, but only has 1.05 mtpy of rolling capacity. While the long-term goal remains to build a plant that would close the capacity gap, Pomina will sell the excess billet until that plan is feasible.

Sources: Steel Business Briefing