On July 15, the world's second largest steelmaker Japan-based Nippon Steel Corp. (Nippon Steel) announced that next month it is planning to restart one of two blast furnaces that have been idled since February, in line with the recovery of steel exports to the Asian region.
Accordingly, the company will raise the temperature of the No. 2 blast furnace at its Oita works after they re-ignite it on August 2, with production targeted to kick off in September.
Nippon Steel will be the first Japanese steelmaker to refire a blast furnace which was idled due to the global economic downturn.
Within the startup of the blast furnace, Nippon Steel's crude steel output will increase to over 6.5 million mt for the July-September period, up almost 40 percent compared with the previous three-month period.
The latest worldsteel data has shown that Nippon Steel produced 37.5 million mt of crude steel in 2008, ranked second in the world, unchanged compared to 2007.