Tokyo Steel Manufacturing to Construct World Largest Electric Furnace Plant

Japanese largest electric furnace steel maker, Tokyo Steel Manufacturing announced on Friday the new plant construction project located in Tawara City of Aichi Prefecture. The new plant will produce steel sheet mainly with 2.5 million tonnes of annual output capacity, which will become the largest electric furnace plant in the world. The firm plans about 122 billion yen of investment for the first phase including land cost. The firm will construct steel making facilities, rolling mill, product warehouse and ferrous scrap yard, while the first phase already started from quay construction with 800 meters of length and 10 meters of depth. The facilities will start operation in October, 2008. Crude steel production capacity of the firm would reach 6 million tonnes per year after the completion. Tokyo Steel Manufacturing could become no.5 largest steel maker in Japan, which will get ahead of Nisshin Steel which is an integrated steel maker producing 3.09 million tonnes of crude steel in fiscal 2005 ended March 2006. The new plant will have one or several electric furnaces using mainly ferrous scrap, continuous casting lines, hot strip mill and continuous pickling equipment. The firm will order the construction to general contractors and plant makers at the beginning of 2007. The quay construction will complete in next autumn. The new plant will be named Tawara plant which will have 500 employees. The firm has not decided when to start the second phase construction yet.