Read the Kallanish South East Asia Report - Week 4, published 24th January 2022. This is a weekly subscription report analysing production, flats, longs, semis, and raw materials for the region. 

In the news this week:

Nippon Steel announces acquisition of Thai steelmakers - Japan’s Nippon Steel has confirmed it will acquire controlling stakes in G Steel and GJ Steel of Thailand. The two steelmakers have a 1.58 million tonnes/year and 1.5m t/y steel capacity respectively, producing mainly hot rolled coil for construction and pipemaking.

Vietnam's 2022 flat steel demand seen remaining stable - A boost in public spending and recovering civil construction are likely to raise flat steel demand in 2022, according to Viet Dragon Securities Corp. It forecasts domestic coated steel consumption will grow 12% year-on-year to 2.27mt this year, after falling 12.3% y-o-y in 2021. It also expects pipe consumption to grow 8.5% to 2.734mt in 2022, after a 9% rise last year.

Indonesia Dexin starts No.3 blast furnace construction - Dexin Steel has started construction of its No.3 blast furnace with design capacity of 1.52m t/y. With the new equipment, Dexin will boost its capacity to 5m t/y of iron and 7m t/y of crude steel in the first half of 2022.

Indonesia GNI ships first nickel pig iron - PT Gunbuster Nickel Industries (GNI) in Indonesia shipped on 20 January 13,677t of nickel pig iron (NPI) from Central Sulawesi to China. GNI, a unit of China’s Jiangsu Delong Nickel Industry, has NPI production capacity of 1.8m t/y.

Attack halts China-backed nickel plant in Myanmar - The China-backed Tagaung Taung nickel-processing plant in Sagaing Province, Myanmar has halted production because of an attack on three electricity pylons that form its major power source. The plant can produce 85,000 t/y of ferronickel containing 22,000t of pure nickel metal.

Nickel X identifies new Cosmos South nickel targets - Australian base metals explorer Nickel X Limited has defined high priority nickel targets just 10km south of the main mine of its Cosmos South Nickel Project, following the completion of geophysical re-processing.

Vietnam steel output jumps in 2021 - Crude steel production in Vietnam is expected to have reached 23mt in 2021, up 16% y-o-y. Finished steel production and sales were 33mt and 29mt respectively, up 19% and 16% y-o-y. Steel exports reached more than 14mt of finished and semi-finished steel and imports were 13mt.

Rio Tinto's iron ore output declines in 2021 - Pilbara Q4 iron ore production (100% basis) was 1% up on Q3 but down 2% y-o-y to 84.1mt. Full-year production of 319.7mt was down 4% due to above average rainfall in H1.

BHP iron ore output growth disappoints - BHP reported 4% quarter-on-quarter growth in iron ore production in the fourth quarter of 2021 to 66.1mt. However, total iron ore output over July-December, the first half of fiscal year 2022 (FY22), increased only 1% year-on-year to 129.4mt.

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