Major Turkish longs producer takes first step to flats production

Turkish integrated long steel producer Kardemir has taken the first step to enter into flat steel production by starting to produce narrow tool steel plate, also known as platina, at its rail and profile rolling mill, the company said on Thursday.

“We have started commercial production of narrow platina with 20-80 mm thick and 200-405 mm wide with an initial capacity of 25,000 mt [per year],” the company’s general manager, Huseyin Soykan, said. He added that their target is to reach 100,000 mt/year of production capacity soon and to raise the width to as much as 520 mm.

“We will continue to focus on value-added steel and our new narrow platina production could be evaluated as Kardemir’s first step into flat steel production,” the general manager said.

Kardemir, which relighted its fourth blast furnace after a revamp at the beginning of October last year, also launched its second basic oxygen converter and lime plants in the fourth quarter of 2019 following capacity increase investments.

Within the scope of the 3.5 million mt/year steel production capacity target as well as the performance increase and productivity, the company will build a new blast furnace with a capacity of 1 million mt/year, as S&P Global Platts has reported.

Kardemir currently has 2.5 million mt/year of liquid steel production capacity.

— Cenk Can