Posted on 15 Jul 2019
Indonesia's PT Krakatau Steel began operation of its new blast furnace at the end of last week, Kallanish understands.
The blast furnace produced its first hot metal on Friday at the company's steelworks located at Cilegon, Banten in West Java, sources close to the steelmaker reveal.
There was a blow-in ceremony for the blast furnace in late-December 2018. The past six months enabled the completion of both technical and non-technical work. This includes maintaining the quality of the sinter as well as making preparations for the supply of raw materials. The project consists of a 1,832-cubic-metre blast furnace, a 64-hole 6-metre coke oven, and a 180-square-metre sintering machine.
Designed and supplied by China's MCC CERI, the plant can produce 1.2 million tonnes/year of hot metal. The company has targeted for the furnace to reach its full capacity within the first quarter of 2020. The plant began construction in 2013 with a total investment of $1 billion. The blast furnace will enable Krakatau to reduce its cost of production and balance its production capacity in upstream steelmaking.
In addition to the blast furnace, PT Krakatau Steel is the process of installing its 1.5 m t/y Hot Strip Mill 2 (HSM #2). This new strip mill is expected to be commissioned later this year. The new mill will lift PTKS’ installed HRC capacity to around 3.9m t/y. Last year, the Indonesian steelmaker produced 1.24 million tonnes of HRC, up 23% on-year.
