China Steel to Renew No.1 Hot Strip Mill for Better Productivity, Quality

China Steel Corporation of Taiwan renews motor and controlling system of hot rolling mill at Kaohsiung for the 3-year program. The firm tries to improve the productivity and quality to serve growing demand for high valued steel products including automotive flat steel. The firm tires to follow growing Asian market, especially in emerging countries through the group wide program for expansion and quality improvement at the No.1 and No.2 hot strip mills at Kaohsiung, Chung Hung Steel and Dragon Steel.

China Steel expands the hot rolling capacity by 1 million tonnes to annual 4 million tonnes at Dragon Steel in 2012 to supply the hot band when the Vietnamese cold rolling joint venture with Sumitomo Metal Industries starts operation.

The group started a large blast furnace at Dragon Steel in February to secure enough steel sources to match the downstream operations. Dragon Steel launches second blast furnace in end of 2012. After the second furnace commissioning, the group has 6 blast furnaces including 4 furnaces at Kaohsiung to produce around 17 million tonnes of raw steel and 20 million tonnes of rolled steel products per year.

Kaohsiung’s No.1 hot strip mill recorded cumulated 100 million tonnes of production on July 7 since the start in February 1982. The firm expanded the strip mill capacity to 4.3 million tonne per year from initial 1.65 million tonnes. The firm tries to increase the export sales to China and Southeast Asia through the expansion when the firm plans to launch No.3 cold rolling mill with 1.5 million tonnes of annul output capacity in February 2011 and expand the continuous galvanizing capacity.