Japan's JFE Steel banks No.2 Kurashiki blast furnace; expects to lose 400,000 mt steel output
Tokyo — Japan's second largest integrated furnace mill, JFE Steel, has temporarily banked its No.2 blast furnace at the Kurashiki section of its West Japan Works, expecting to lose a total 400,000 mt of crude steel output from this stoppage, a JFE spokesman said Wednesday.
The No.2 blast furnace at Kurashiki, with an inner volume of 4,100 cu m was banked on October 23 due to a facility problem, which did not allow production to run smoothly. The company has not figured out the actual reason for the problem, but it expects to restart the blast furnace around mid-November, and increase production gradually to pre-banking levels by end-December.
The spokesman said there are two other blast furnaces at Kurashiki -- No.3 with an inner volume of 5,055 cu m and No.4 with 5,005 cu m. Both of these blast furnaces as well as other blast furnaces at other works are operating at full capacities.
