Power Failures Plague Operations at Nippon Steel Mill in Nagoya, Japan

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Power failures have forced Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corporation (TSE:5401) (NSSMC) (Tokyo, Japan) to halt operations repeatedly at its Nagoya Steel Plant in Aichi Prefecture, Japan.

The first power failure occurred just before noon on Friday, January 17. Following the outage, flames and smoke were seen coming out of the coke ovens. No injuries were reported.

The coke ovens are used to manufacture metallurgical coke by heating coals in a chamber with temperatures of approximately 1,000 degrees Celsius, where the air is excluded. During this process, coke-oven gas is generated as a by-product. The coke-oven gas is used as fuel for boilers or reheat furnaces.

NSSMC officials said during a press conference that the coke-oven gas, which accumulates during regular operations, is treated so it can be used as a fuel. However, the power failure halted the treatment process, and NSSMC decided to burn the coke-oven gas over the coke oven, resulting in a massive amount of smoke.

The burn-off stopped early Saturday morning, and the power supply was restored.

However, another power failure occurred on Monday. As a result, another burn-off of coke-oven gas was conducted. NSSMC is looking to the cause of this power failure and said it will try to restore the power as soon as possible. The company also plans to conduct an inspection to see if there was any damage to the production equipment.

With 3,000 workers, the 67 million-square-foot Nagoya Steel Plant is NSSMC's fourth-largest in Japan. In fiscal year 2012, it produced approximately 6.5 million ton of crude steel. The plant manufactures thin steel sheets for the automotive industry, with about half the production going to Toyota Motor Corporation (TSE:7203) ( Aichi, Japan). The plant also manufactures thick sheet plates used for tanks and construction equipment.

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