Nippon&SMI joint venture brings some plant closures

Nippon&SMI joint venture brings some plant closures

As previously reported by SteelOrbis on June 23, Nippon Steel Corp. and Sumitomo Metal Ind. (SMI) decided to merge their stainless steel operations, scheduled to take place on October 1, 2003. In compliance with this desicion, except Sumitomo's strip business, Nippon Steel's main stainless steel plant at Hikari and rolling mills together with the plate mill at the Yawata works and stainless facilities at Sumitomo Metal's Kashima plant will be taken over. New firm, to be named Nippon Steel Sumikin Stainless Corp. (NSSC), will have a product range of stainless slabs, billets, sheets, plates, bars and wires. This joint venture is expected to reduce operating expenses considerably and enable companies to close operations with low productivity, such as cold rolling mills, annealing & pickling lines both at Hikari and Kashima and the heavy plate levelling line at Kashima.