Vietnam-based steelmaker Hoa Phat Group has announced that its total steel sales reached 439,000 mt in February this year, including 189,000 mt of construction steel, 175,000 mt of billet and 75,000 mt of hot rolled coil (HRC).
The group’s steel sales in the given month declined from the same month last year as the Tet (Lunar New Year) Holiday was prolonged for a month and the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on many localities nationwide. However, as March is the peak time for steel consumption, the company has prepared good inventories to serve the strong market demand. In fact, sales volumes in the first days of March have increased dramatically.
Hoa Phat’s steel products have continued to receive great attention from major export markets around the world such as the US, Japan, China and Indonesia. In particular, its US partners have ordered in large volumes.
In the January-February period this year, Hoa Phat’s sales volume of finished construction steel, steel billet and hot rolled coil reached over one million mt, of which finished construction steel totaled 376,000 mt. The company’s exports of finished construction steel came to 67,000 mt, slightly increasing over the same period last year. In the first two months, its sales of steel billets in both domestic and foreign markets reached 214,000 mt, while sales of HRC amounted to 428,000 mt, equivalent to 74 percent of the total output in 2020.
At the beginning of January this year, the blast furnace No. 4 at Hoa Phat Dung Quat Iron and Steel Complex was put into operation, helping Hoa Phat’s total crude steel output reach 627,000 mt in February. Meanwhile, in 2021, Hoa Phat Group aims to produce 2.7 million mt of hot rolled coil and over five million mt of construction steel and billet, as SteelOrbis previously reported.