JFE to restart Kurashiki blast furnace in end November

Japanese steel producer JFE Steel is aiming to restart the No.2 blast furnace at its Kurashiki complex by the end of this month, after an unexpected shutdown following a technical problem.

JFE Steel was forced to halt operations at the No.2 blast furnace at Kurashiki in western Japan's Okayama prefecture on 23 October because of a ventilation problem. The company plans to restart the steel mill by the end of November with a limited capacity, targeting to fully restore the unit by the end of December.

The unscheduled shutdown should reduce the company's production of crude steel by around 400,000t, or 1.3pc of its annual output of around 30mn t. JFE is now asking for its customers such as automobile manufacturers to push back delivery date, as well as shipping out steel products from its other steel mills.

The steel disruptions prompted parent firm JFE Holdings to revise down its profit outlook for the 2018-19 fiscal year ending 31 March to ¥175bn ($1.6bn), lower by ¥5bn from the previous forecast. But this would be still higher by ¥30.4bn compared with a profit of ¥144.6bn for 2017-18.

JFE Steel produced 14.84mn t of crude steel during April-September, down by 0.5pc from a year earlier.