POSCO Restores Blast Furnace in Three Days... "Great Support from MZ Generation Employees" (Comprehensive)

All Three Units of Goro 3 Operating Normally
Blast Furnace No. 4 Also Restarted
Emergency Shipment Response Team in Operation

Employees of the Power System Section at Pohang Steelworks are spraying lubricant on the flooded high-voltage circuit breaker.

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Hyung-gil] POSCO, which suffered flood damage from Typhoon ‘Hinnamnor,’ is accelerating damage recovery and resumption of operations. It has succeeded in restarting three blast furnaces at the Pohang Steelworks and has begun production at some steelmaking and continuous casting facilities.

However, major facilities producing steel products are still submerged in muddy water, making it difficult to predict when normal operations will resume. There are concerns that normalization may not be achieved until next year, which could deal a significant blow to domestic industries such as shipbuilding and automobiles.

According to POSCO and related industries on the 13th, POSCO resumed operations of blast furnaces 2, 3, and 4 at the Pohang Steelworks through overnight recovery work during the Chuseok holiday. Following the restart of blast furnace 3 on the 10th, blast furnaces 4 and 2 sequentially began normal operations on the 12th.

From the 12th, efforts focused on restoring steelmaking facilities that remove impurities from molten iron produced in the blast furnaces and continuous casting facilities that solidify liquid iron. Four out of seven converters in the steelmaking plant and four out of eight continuous casting machines were restarted.

Although the blast furnaces have begun restarting, full normalization remains distant. Especially, the rolling line near Naengcheon, which suffered the greatest damage due to river flooding, is expected to require a considerable amount of time for recovery work. Considering equipment and material inspections after restoration, it is predicted that production may not return to normal until next year.

A POSCO official explained, "Drainage work on the rolling line is about 80% complete. Priority operations such as the No. 1 hot rolling mill and No. 3 heavy plate mill have completed drainage and power has been reconnected, but accurate damage assessment and plans for rolling line restoration or operation can only be established once underground facilities of the rolling line are fully restored."

[Image source=Yonhap News]

In particular, even POSCO’s MZ generation employees actively participated and played a major role in the damage recovery.

The Power System Section of the Energy Department at Pohang Steelworks, which led the power restoration work, is a young team with about 90% of its 34 employees in their 20s and 30s. They worked through three days and nights without proper meals to restart the blast furnaces.

A Pohang Steelworks official said, "The total blackout at Pohang Steelworks was an unprecedented crisis that no one had ever experienced. Inside the factory where not a single light was on, employees had to fight a tough battle relying only on lantern light in the darkness, and they united even more in the crisis, demonstrating ingenuity."

POSCO plans to transfer some semi-finished products from Pohang Steelworks to Gwangyang Steelworks to continue product manufacturing. By adjusting repair schedules and switching Gwangyang Steelworks to a maximum production system, they will respond to urgent customer requests. From this day, an emergency shipment response team will operate to quickly ship available inventory.

However, it is expected that normal product production will inevitably face setbacks. Shipbuilding, automobile, and construction industries that have used products from Pohang Steelworks are within the impact zone. Pohang Steelworks’ crude steel production was 16.85 million tons last year, accounting for 35% of the country’s total production.

Choi Jeong-woo, Chairman of POSCO Group (POSCO Holdings), visited Pohang Steelworks on the 12th and said, "The most important thing in recovery activities is safety, and I ask that recovery work be carried out thoroughly based on prescribed procedures without rushing." He added, "I deeply appreciate the dedicated efforts of employees who protected and saved the steelworks from flooding caused by Naengcheon overflow and during the recovery process."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.