JFE Steel to install new annealing line for packaging steel

Factiva: Some 60% of this will be sold (mostly exported) while 40% will be processed into tinplate and tin-free steel. 

The new line at the Fukuyama division of its West Japan works will support its blackplate and tinplate operations. Costing about ¥17bn ($191m), the new CAL will boast a capacity of 40,000 tonnes/month and should be commissioned in the second half of fiscal 2010 ending March 2011. Construction began in December.

JFE says the new facility will not add significantly to annealing capacity because once the No.2 line is started, the company will shut the No.1 CAL at Fukuyama. This has a capacity of 22,000 t/m. Total CAL output for later use in cans and other containers will increase by about 18,000 t/m.

The new line will be capable of producing sheets to 0.15mm – 0.03mm thinner than No.1 CAL is capable of. The maximum width will also be 1,270mm, some 203mm wider. JFE says the wider sheets are not required for any particular product but chiefly to improve efficiency – in its own works and in that of its customers.

Almost all of the new line’s throughput will be for blackplate.