BNA Expands Galvanized Steel Sheet Production in China

Nippon Steel announced on Thursday the firm decided to construct no.3 continuous galvanized steel sheet line (CGL) which has the production capacity of 450,000 tonnes per year in Baosteel-NSC/Arcelor Automotive Steel Sheets Co., Ltd (BNA) which is joint company with Bao Steel and Arcelor Mittal. The firm constructs no.3 line near existing line with the investment of about 25 billion yen, and will start no.3 line in 2010 and will get rising demand in China. Nippon Steel and Bao Steel already arrived at the agreement for no.3 line in November and announced to decide at BNA’s board meeting in December. No.3 line is same type with no.1 CGL. They will expand the production capacity of high quality galvanized steel sheet for automobile and get the share at 50% of all steel sheet for automobile in China including the production of Bao Steel. BNA is joint company. Bao Steel invests 50% to BNA, Nippon Steel invests 38% and Arcelor Mittal invests 12%. BNA’s production capacity is at 1.7 million tones per year for cold rolling mill, 900,000tonnes for continuous annealing line, 450,000 tonnes for no. CGL and 350,000 tonnes for no.2 CGL. BNA started the operation in March 2005 and resolved the cumulative loss for 2 and half years.