South Korea’s second-largest steelmaker Hyundai Steel has temporarily halted production at its electric arc furnace plant in Dangjin for a month, due to weak demand and the plant’s low profitability amid expensive raw materials, thus halting production at the EAF for the first time since 2005. The company said that demand for hot rolled steel started to decrease before the outbreak of the coronavirus, but that orders for June have decreased to almost zero.
Hyundai Steel will decide the future of the electric arc furnace following negotiations to be carried out with workers, SteelOrbis understands.
South Korean steelmakers POSCO and Dongbu Steel previously announced that they had halted their electric furnace operations in response to weak demand.