September 08, 2008

Dongbu new plant starts on construction at Dangjin

YIEH reported that South Korea Dongbu Steel’s USD 678 million steel plant has started construction. The plant locating Dangjin in the southwest of Seoul will start to produce hot rolled steel sheet with capacity of 2.5 million tonnes through an electric arc furnace by 2009.

The new plant with furnace will help Dongbu Steel to melt iron ore and scrap into hot rolled steel plates that in turn can process into the cold rolled steel. Currently, Dongbu steel buys hot rolled steel plates from POSCO and other foreign steel producers to make cold rolled steel sheet.

The new plant will help ease shortage of hot-rolled steel plants and stabilize prices of steel products and Dongbu will become the third steelmaker in South Korea that operates electric furnaces.