Japan: JFE Steel Kurashiki BF restarts ahead of schedule

Japan's second-largest integrated furnace mill, JFE Steel Corporation, has announced that it has restarted its No.4 blast furnace (BF) on 13 Dec'21 at its West Japan Works, Kurashiki Ward (Okayama Prefecture) after a temporary closure of 18 months. The closure had been part of the Covid-19 response amid low demand.

The construction had started in April last year at a cost of about 50 billion yen. The Kurashiki district had returned to normal operations of other three blast furnaces before the Corona disaster.

The Kurashiki No. 4 blast furnace was shut down ahead of schedule in late April last year in response to the sharp drop in demand due to Covid-19. With this resumption, all of Japan's domestic mills having blast furnaces, including Nippon Steel, which was temporarily suspended due to the pandemic, have resumed operations except for those blast furnaces which have been shelved.

Given the addition of a casting machine in June this year, the production capacity will be increased and the company aims to further increase its competitiveness.

Given the strong demand for steel, JFE aims to raise its operating rate in a short period of time by making full use of advanced information processing technology. Generally, a reignited blast furnace takes about two weeks to return to normal operation levels. The resumption date has been advanced from the end of December, which was originally planned.

In this renovation, after having completed the relining, the inner furnace volume was increased to 5,100 cubic meters (cu m) or by about 2% compared to the original 5,005 cu m, according to the company's announcement.

In addition to the renewal of the furnace body, the BF's function has been strengthened so that the drop position of raw materials such as iron ore can be controlled with higher accuracy. This will lead to a reduction in operating costs by improving efficiency.