Posco breaks ground on plant for car parts

Posco, Korea’s leading steelmaker, said yesterday it has begun building a plant in the country that produces magnesium sheets to be used in the production of automobiles.

The plant in the southern city of Suncheon, South Jeolla, 415 kilometers (258 miles) south of Seoul, will be built by August 2012, with an annual capacity of 10,000 tons of magnesium sheets, according to Posco.

Posco said commercial production at the plant may start in 2013 as the world’s third-largest steelmaker and the Research Institute of Industrial Science and Technology in Pohang, North Gyeongsang, are engaged in the development of casting technology for wider magnesium sheets.

Posco already has a plant in the country that produces 3,000 tons of 600-millimeter-wide (23.5-inch-wide) magnesium sheets annually. Magnesium sheets are used mainly in manufacturing hard cases for mobile devices such as phones and laptops.