Nippon Coke & Engineering to Idle A Coke Battery

Nippon Coke & Engineering, former Mitsui Mining, announced on Friday the firm idles a cokes battery at Kitakyushu Coking Works on Wednesday. The firm has reduced the operation rate to the lowest level of 70% under very slow demand. However, the firm decided the stoppage to decrease the output more without damaging furnaces. Schedule for restart is not yet determined. The suspension could take months when the restart would take about 1.5 months after the decision to restart the battery.

The firm stops the operation of no.1B of 4 batteries in the works. The idling battery has 350,000 tonnes of production capacity per year. The firm keeps the battery in hot banking status, under which the furnace battery is closed and kept hot at 1,000 degrees centigrade compared with 1,300 degrees during operation.

The capacity of no.1B battery represents 16.7% of Kitakyushu’s 2.1 million tonnes of output capacity. The firm operates at 4 batteries while the no.1A battery with 500,000 tonnes of capacity is for customer’s consignment production. The firm reduces the operation rate against capacity from 70% to 60% for operating 2 batteries except for no.1A.