Citing the spread of the Covid-19 virus and emphasizing the importance of its workers’ health, Turkish integrated iron and steel producer Kardemir has announced that it will bring forward some various maintenance works to an earlier time and partly cut its daily production levels. The producer said the measures are being taken to be able to reduce the number of workers and maximize work safety and sustainable production factors, after considering the current negative market conditions.
“Our priority is our workers’ health,” the company said, “Accordingly, we have put many measures in place, especially the ones required by the Health Ministry. Additionally, we have reviewed our emergency plans, made a large-scale risk analysis of the micro and macro impacts of the current situation on our firm as well as the iron and steel industry.”
Kardemir stated that it has taken all measures to assure the security of supply for all its partners, adding that it is ready to impose additional measures if necessary.
Being an integrated iron and steel plant, Kardemir has desulphurization at its steel mill, converter, pot furnace and vacuum degassing facilities and is capable of clean steel production. In 2018, Kardemir produced 2.4 million metric tons of liquid steel.