Korea Business News Agency - NSP NEWS.

(Seoul=NSP NEWS AGENCY) = Following the shutdown of Hyundai Steel's Pohang 2 plant, some production lines at the Pohang 1 plant are also stopped.

According to Hyundai Steel on Thursday, the company will temporarily suspend the operation of steel bar(rebar), steelmaking, and rolling lines at Pohang Plant 1 from May 22 to 31. In addition, Hyundai Steel‘s Incheon Plant 2 will be closed from May 13 to 27.

The smaller plant in Incheon has already stopped production since September 9th. Hyundai Steel has cut about 70,000 tons of rebar production this month alone due to the shutdowns at its three plants in Pohang, Dangjin, and Incheon.

Considering that this year's Lunar New Year holiday starts on the 25th and runs through the 2nd of next month, operations at the three plants, including Pohang Plant 1, are expected to resume around the 3rd of next month.

A Hyundai Steel official said, “The demand for rebar is plummeting due to the prolonged downturn in the domestic construction industry. As a result, we have decided to shut down some of our plant facilities ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays,” he said, adding, ”We expect to cut rebar production by about 70,000 tons in January alone.”

The decision to shut down Pohang Plant 2 is a move to improve productivity and operational efficiency as the plant has been experiencing low utilization rates due to the onslaught of low-cost steel products from China and a prolonged construction slowdown in Korea.

Meanwhile, in the steel industry, Hyundai Steel is expected to further cut production next month if the construction economy does not revive.

By Soon-ki Lee(s8789@nspna.com) and In-ho Cho(eno8166@nspna.com)

ⓒNSP News Agency·NSP TV. All rights reserved. Prohibits using to train AI models.