Three of the seven Korean metallurgical enterprises are planning to close the steel plate production capacity in several stages. Earlier, Korea Iron & Steel Association wrote a report on plans to restructure the steel industry.
The steel plate is a 6mm thick steel sheet commonly used to build ships. In Korea, POSCO has four steel plate production facilities, while Hyundai Steel has two and Dongkuk Steel has one plant. The combined production capacity of these seven facilities is 12 million tonnes.
The steel sheet, which was in demand during the boom in the shipbuilding industry, is currently suffering from declining demand and the flow of cheap Chinese products, the report says. Accordingly, domestic firms suffer more losses. The report also predicted that steel plate demand would decline from 9.2 million tonnes last year to 7 million tonnes in 2020.
As the number of orders received by Korean shipbuilding companies is expected to halve by 2020 from last year, the current production capacity should be reduced by 4 million tons to 5 million tons. Accordingly, one of the steel sheet production facilities should be closed by the end of this year, while two more next.
South Korea cuts down plate production capacity
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Azovpromstal® 20 September 2016 г. 11:46 |
