On December 5, South Korea's Hyundai Steel Co., the world's second largest electric arc furnace steelmaker, announced the commissioning of its blast furnace No. 1 with an annual capacity of four million metric tons at its new integrated steel mill in Dangjin, located about 123 km southwest of Seoul.
The company aims to complete its blast furnace No. 2 by early 2011, thus reaching a capacity of eight million metric tons a year. The equipment for the blast furnaces is supplied by Luxembourg-based plantmaker Paul Wurth S.A.
The construction of Hyundai Steel's eco-friendly integrated steel mill at Danjin started in 2006, with an investment of about KRW 5.84 trillion (approx. $5 billion). Once completed, the steel mill is expected to produce 6.5 million metric tons of hot rolled coils to be used by the automotive, electronics, construction and machinery industries, and also 1.5 million metric tons of steel plates to be used in shipbuilding and as construction material.
In 2007, Hyundai Steel had signed a long-term iron ore supply contact for the plant with Brazilian mining giant Vale, and signed similar contracts in 2008 with mining companies such as Australia's Rio Tinto. Also in 2007, a memorandum of understanding was signed with Germany's ThyssenKrup Steel for technological cooperation.
The new mill has also an exclusive port, which has four berths for vessels of 30,000, 50,000, 100,000 and 200,000 dwt.