South Korean steelmaker Posco raised its production and sales forecasts for 2020 by 3.5% and 4.3%, respectively, from its previous April forecast, the company said July 21.
Crude steel production is now forecast at 35.3 million mt, up from 34.1 million mt projected in April, while sales will touch 33.8 million mt, up from a previous forecast of 32.4 million mt, the company said.
Posco expects its performance to recover in the third quarter from a bottom in the second quarter, due to higher sales of its high-strength steel sheets used in making cars, higher exports to China, and to other countries where steel demand is rebounding.
South Korea's vehicle production in June reached 297,019 units, up 28.5% from May, but down 11% in comparison to a year ago, data from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy showed.
Part of the higher crude steel production will come from a restart of its No. 3 blast furnace at Gwangyang on July 10 following the completion of scheduled maintenance/refurbishment works.
The works boosted the No. 3's volume to 5,500 cubic meter from 4,600 cu m thereby improving its productivity by 25% to 4.6 million mt/year.
The furnace was initially expected to restart as early as May 28 but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
But the coronavirus did affect its Q2 crude steel production which contracted to 7.79 million mt, down from 9.07 million mt in Q1 and 9.44 million mt in Q2 2019.
Likewise, steel product output fell to 7.85 million mt in Q2 from 8.72 million in Q1 and 8.86 million mt year on year.
-- Clement Choo
Source : Steel Business Briefing
