OREANDA-NEWS. July 06, 2012. POSCO Specialty Steel began construction of POSCO SS-VINA, a plant in Vietnam designed to produce one million tonnes of shape steel and steel reinforcement a year. This plant will be located at Phu My Second Industrial Zone, Ba Ria-Vung Tau province as a manufacturing base in the Southeast Asian region and is expected to be completed by July 2014, reported the press-centre of POSCO.  

The groundbreaking ceremony of POSCO SS-VINA held on June 27 was attended by about 170 related personnel including POSCO Chairman Chung Joon-yang, President of POSCO SS Seong Hyun-uk, Deputy Prime Minister of Vietnam Hoang Trung Hai, Consul-General in Ho Chi Minh City Oh Jae-hak and Chairman of Danieli & Co. Gianpietro Benedetti.

In his opening speech, POSCO Chairman Chung said, ``The reason we decided to launch the construction of POSCO SS-VINA despite the current tough global financial situation is that we feel confident about the future of Vietnam which has a high growth potential. Based on POSCO`s accumulated steel mill construction and operation experiences, we will make sure this project is successful by using highly qualified human resources of Vietnam.``

POSCO Specialty Steel is a steel-related company owned by POSCO and is a manufacturer specialized in the production of special steel products such as stainless steel products, tool steel and forged steel.

POSCO SS-VINA will include two steel mills; One is steel manufacturing plant which is equipped with an electric furnace with 120-tonnes of molten metal generating capacity at once and the another one is a rolling mill which has an annual production capacity of 1 million tonnes of shape steel, steel reinforcement and bar steel. It will also have a port for shipments of materials and product processing only.

Vietnam has recently been promoting a large-scale state-led infra construction project including development of roads, railways and subways. The demand for steel reinforcement and shape steel mainly used for construction areas is expected to rise by more than 8% on annual average.

With the construction start of POSCO SS-VINA, POSCO SS paved the ground to gain an upper hand in the rapidly growing Vietnamese rolled steel market as it enables Vietnam to manufacture and supply mid-to large-scale of shape steel which have been entirely imported from overseas.

POSCO plans to maximize its synergy as a comprehensive steelmaker which manufactures and supplies various products from shape steel, reinforcement steel to high-end cold rolled sheets by combining the existing cold rolled sheet mill with a production capacity of 1.2 million tonnes, the cold-rolled stainless steel mill with capacity of 280 thousand tonnes and the plant with producing capacity of 200 thousand tonnes of reinforcement steel and wire rods, with POSCO SS-VINA to be constructed.