5 February 2019

Latest Steel Market News

JFE to slash production due to maintenance issues

Japan’s JFE which is operating around eight blast furnaces across Japan, three of them are facing issues. This would result in a lost of 1.4 million tonnes of crude steel in total.

Blast furnace No. 2 at the Kurashiki area, West Japan Works, is set for going back to a pre-banking level in early February since banked from 23rd October 2018.

Its No. 6 blast furnace, at the Chiba area, East Japan Works was temporarily banked on 13^th  December 2018 and was returned to the pre-banking level by mid-January.

The No. 4 blast furnace at the Fukuyama area, West Japan Works was banked on 5th January 2019 which is expected to turn to pre-banking level by end-February.

JFE also hints to install an artificial intelligence (AI) technology to prevent such issues in the future.

 

Liberty wins a major pipeline contract

Liberty Steel’s pipe mill works at Hartlepool to supply around 22 miles heavy duty steel pipe for the Shell Shearwater gas project in the North Sea, Scotland.

The Liberty pipe mills at Hartlepool is reported to have started producing the first batch of a total order for 12,000 million tonnes of a 24-inch diameter steel pipe from Subsea7.

 

Canadian provinces urge Ottawa  to tariffs on the steel  and aluminium

Canadian provinces, Ontario and Quebec, have urged the federal government to remove import tariffs on the US steel (25%) and aluminium (10%). The Canadian government imposed these tariffs on 1^st July 2018 in retaliation to the US 1^st June 2018 action under section 232. So, far Canada collected around C$1 billion in levies.

 

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