The main steel producer in Vietnam, Hoa Phat Group, has reported a fire incident at its blast furnace No. 1 on July 11 at the Dung Quat Complex. Production was halted at the weekend.
The producer immediately sprayed fire-fighting cooling water on the surrounding areas and the blast furnace automatically released the pressure valve at the top of the furnace to prevent an explosion of the equipment, Hoa Phat said in its report.
The maintenance will take about two to three days, according to the official statement, and sources said that that blast furnace has already been put back into operation. “It is not a big problem,” one of the sources from Vietnam told SteelOrbis. Some other sources said that the problem will be fully fixed this week.
There have been some concerns in the market regarding whether the company will have any delays in export shipments of billets, but for now all domestic sources deny this possibility.