Southeast China's Xinyu Steel to install two new Blast furnaces

Xinyu Iron & Steel Co (Xinyu Steel), a newly acquired subsidiary of China Baowu Steel Group (Baowu), the world's largest steel producer, will install two new blast furnaces (BFs) to replace its four existing BFs, according to a March 13 release from Jiangxi province's Department of Industry and Information Technology.

Based in Southeast China's Jiangxi, Xinyu is an integrated steelmaker and is also the province's largest mills, producing 10.14 million tonnes of crude steel in 2021, according to the World Steel Association data.

According to the government statement, this September Xinyu intends to begin constructing two 2,610 cu m BFs with a combined crude steel capacity of approximately 4.364 million tonnes/year that it hopes to commission by December 2025.

In order for the mill to add the new facilities, China's long-standing "capacity swap" guidelines require it to stop and scrap old facilities of at least the same productive capacity in operation at the time, as Mysteel Global reported. Consequently, before the new project is put into operation Xinyu intends to scrap four existing BFs that have a crude steel production capacity of 4.8 million t/y, the statement said.

"Although the total capacity of the new blast furnaces will be slightly lower than that of the existing furnaces, (the project) is still a step towards upgrading the whole company," a Xinyu official told Mysteel Global.

Back in April 2022, Capital Operation Holding Group Co - a state-owned company under the Jiangxi government and 100% owner of Xinyu Steel - had inked an agreement with Baowu, agreeing to transfer 51% of its share in Xinyu without charge. Later in November 2022, Baowu officially became Xinyu Steel's controlling shareholder after receiving approval from China's State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC), as Mysteel Global reported.

Yi Lianhong, secretary of the Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee, said in a speech last November that he hoped that Baowu's takeover of Xinyu would help Xinyu Steel accelerate its transformation and upgrading and "build a new company".

Chair of Baowu, Chen Derong, also said later that Baowu would speed up the promotion of Xinyu Steel to achieve development "with higher quality".

Written by Carly Chen, chenziyi@mysteel.com

Edited by Zhenqi Yang, yangzhenqi@mysteel.com

Note: This article has been written in accordance with an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.