Japanese steelmaker Kobe Steel Ltd has announced that its Chinese joint venture (JV) company, Kobe Special Steel Wire Products Co., Ltd. (KSP), has started up its new pickling equipment installed in Pinghu in China’s Zhejiang Province. The investment for the new pickling equipment totaled about JPY 1.3 billion ($11.49 million).
Kobe Steel stated that the new equipment increases the production capacity of KSP to about 4,900 metric tons per month, from 3,500 metric tons per month.
KSP was established in 2007 to process steel wire rod into cold heading quality steel wire for supply mainly to Japanese-affiliated automotive parts manufacturers in China.