Sumitomo Metals Starts Building Work for No.3 BF at Kashima

Sumitomo Metal Industries held ceremony to start building work for no.3 blast furnace, of which the firm starts operation in May 2007, at Kashima works on Thursday. Vice president Shozo Nishizawa and Yasuyuki Tozaki and managing executive officer Shinichi Miki, who is top manager of the works, and 150 of contractors and suppliers attended the ceremony. The ceremony is to fix brick with letters for long life of the furnace and safety operation on the bottom of the furnace before building of fire brick. The working started on Thursday to build 65,000 of bricks to build the furnace. The firm finishes the working in January 2007 and starts test operation in February. The furnace will have domestic 4th largest capacity with 110 meters height, 15 meters of diameter and 5,370 cubic meters of capacity as the no.l furnace. The building costs 29 billion yen. Sumitomo Metals operates no.1 blast furnace with 5,370 cubic meters of capacity and no.2 furnace with 4,800 cubic meters at Kashima works. The firm stops operation of no.2 furnace after completion of no.3 furnace. With the 2 furnaces with more than 5,000 cubic meters each, the firm can produce annual 8 million tonnes of raw steel at Kashima in fiscal 2007 starting April 2007.