Vietnamese steelmaker Hoa Phat Group produced 120,000mt of hot-rolled coil (HRC) in October and has predicted it will have manufactured sufficient HRC to begin selling to outside consumers in early November.
The steelmaker completed the installation of four furnaces last week adding to its contribution as a large player in Vietnam’s steel industry for the domestic and export markets.
Until recently, Hoa Phat’s production was consumed internally and unavailable for domestic or foreign clients. However, the addition of the new BOFs will enable Hoa Phat to deliver 140,000mt of HRC in November as raw material for steel pipe factories, the company said in a statement on Oct 30. Northern Vietnam customers ordered 60pc of this amount.
Hoa Phat noted that future production will serve consumers in steel pipe, galvanized steel pipe, and engineering industries with finished goods destined for domestic and export markets.
Including the No. 4 blast furnace scheduled to be fully operational in January 2021, Hoa Phat’s annual capacity of HRC steel production is 3mn mt. Another Vietnam competitor, namely Formosa Ha Tinh, has an HRC capacity of 8mn mt with both mills closing the gap towards the 12mn mt estimated HRC coil demand in the country.
The remainder of Hoa Phat’s recently added capacity includes the ability to produce 1mnt mt medium-sized high-quality non-flat steel and 500,00mt of fabricated round steel.