On May 8, Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel Corporation announced that it has been lowering the tapping ratio of its blast furnaces to cut down its overall steel output volume. Nippon stated that some additional measures have also been taken due to the sharp decline in steel product demand.
Accordingly, the company said that it will bring forward the planned outage to modernize the blast furnace No. 2 of Hokkai Iron & Coke Corporation which has the pig iron facilities at the Muroran Works to early July this year.
In addition, the company will temporarily stop production at its blast furnace No. 2 at the Kyushu Works’ Yawata area (Kokura) as of early July, as soon as preparations are completed.
The company had already announced the temporary halting of some of its other blast furnaces, as SteelOrbis has previously reported.