JFE Steel, US Steel to Share Upstream Operation Expertise

JFE Steel announced on Wednesday the firm and US Steel of USA signed cooperative technical exchange agreement to improve operations and products quality. They benchmark the mills and exchange best practices through data exchange of facilities, operations, maintenance and environmental issues and periodical engineer exchange. They share the better knowhow to improve the operations mainly for the upper stream process for better competitiveness. The agreement focuses on upper stream operation and part of hot rolling process, excluding down stream operations and products. They consider technology transfer and sharing while they don’t eye cross share holding.JFE Steel’s president Hajime Bada said they seek win-win relationship through learning each other. They cannot see how much is the economic effect but Mr. Bada indicates the cooperation brings some benefit in a year when they could take around a year to learn technology and build into the operations. They toured plants each other a year ago and have talked for potential cooperation. JFE Steel expects the firm can learn from US Steel with long history and high level technology. US Steel expects they can improve the productivity, efficiency and cost competitiveness through sharing technology and knowhow.JFE Steel has technical partnership with AK Steel of USA for automotive flat steel and has joint venture with Dofasco of Canada to make hot dip galvanizing steel. JFE Steel said the cooperation with US Steel focuses on other areas than partnership with AK Steel and Dofasco.