German plantmaker SMS group has announced that it has successfully commissioned the first of four converters at Vietnam-based steelmaker Hoa Phat Group’s Dung Quat project. In total, the new converter shop shall produce four million mt of liquid steel per year. The plantmaker said that more converters will be commissioned before the end of 2019.
The company will also install four blast furnaces with 1.2 million mt of capacity for each. Hot trials for the first blast furnace started in July.
The converter shop project will be carried out in two phases. In the first phase, the finished steel production will mostly focus on long products, such as rebar and wire rod, aiming to increase Hoa Phat’s presence in the long steel market. Due to higher supply of longs products, competition will get stronger in the local market, resulting in pressure on billet and long product prices. In terms of the scrap imports, other EAF long steel producers are likely to ask for lower scrap prices as higher long steel supply will pull down long steel prices. In second phase of the project, the company will produce hot rolled coil.
In the first half of 2019, Hoa Phat Group supplied over 1.34 million mt of construction steel, up 22.9 percent, while its exports increased by 35 percent to 123,500 mt of products to different markets, both year on year. The company’s main export markets are Japan, Australia, and the US, as well as ASEAN members such as Malaysia, Cambodia, and Laos.