Indonesia: Krakatau Steel Sets New Record For HRC Production

Steel production of PT Krakatau Steel Tbk. broke its record for the highest hot rolled coil (HRC) production of 203,315.5 MT in Oct'19. Its previous record was the production of 200,411 MT.

“This year's achievement shows that the transformation and restructuring process that we carried out has produced results," said Krakatau Steel President Director Silmy Karim in a written statement.

Shipments of finished steel exceeds set target - The production achievement was also followed by shipments of finished products in Oct'19 which exceeded the target of 164,284 MT to consumers.

New factory to start operations in early 2020 - In terms of capacity development, the construction of Hot Strip Mill- 2 (HSM) is currently underway, and mechanical completion will be completed in Q4 CY19. The strip mill - 2 plant will start production in early 2020. With these two HSM-1 and HSM-2 plants, the HRC production capacity will increase to 3.9 MnT pa and can further expand to 6.4 MnTpa, he explained.

As per the company official "with the operation of HSM 2, the installed capacity of HRC producing plants in Indonesia is already greater than market demand, so that all HRC needs can be 100% supplied from within the country. No need to import”.

The challenge currently faced was how to stop steel imports and realize steel self-sufficiency. We hope that govt. can protect investments that have entered Indonesia through trade policies and tightening import licenses to increase the utilization of integrated steel mills from upstream to downstream, they added.