Months later, Posco's Pohang steel mill is up and running, mostly

Industry

Published: 24 Nov. 2022, 13:43 Updated: 24 Nov. 2022, 17:14

Months later, Posco's Pohang steel mill is up and running, mostly

Posco employees help restore a hot rolling facility at its Pohang steel plant in North Gyeongsang on Nov. 23. [POSCO]

POHANG, North Gyeongsang — Fan heaters, hair dryers, clothes drying racks and whatever else could be used, was used to dry facilities and equipment, according to Sohn Seung-rak, head of the hot rolling division at Posco’s Pohang steel mill, as he recalled the events of Sept. 6 when the plant was flooded by Typhoon Hinnamnor.

“I can’t believe almost all hot rolling mills are now fully operational,” Sohn said during a press tour of the No. 2 hot rolling facility in the Pohang plant in North Gyeongsang on Wednesday.

“All Posco employees, myself included, worked night and day to restore this facility, and of the 13 rolling mills in the No. 2 hot rolling facility, 11 are now fully operational.”

The No. 2 hot rolling facility is key to the Pohang plant, which is in charge of producing 5 million tons of steel every year, or about 33 percent of the total produced in the entire factory. The No. 1 rolling facility was fully restored in October.

The Pohang steel mill, which is about three times the size of Yeouido, was completely shut down on Sept. 6 as a nearby river overflowed due to the record-breaking 500 millimeters (19.7 inches) of rainfall from the typhoon. All three blast furnaces were entirely halted, for the first time in the factory's 49-year history. The Pohang steel mill makes up 24 percent of Korea’s total steel production every year.

Three blast furnaces resumed operations less than a week after the incident, Posco said, while seven out of 18 rolling facilities have been fully restored so far. Posco aims to resume a total of 15 facilities by the end of the year, which the steelmaker claims will be enough to make products and normalize business.

A Posco employee works at its Pohang steel plant in North Gyeongsang on Nov. 23. [POSCO]

The press tour Wednesday started from the No. 3 blast furnace, the second oldest of three furnaces the company runs at the plant. The No. 1 furnace was shut permanently last December after operating for 48 years.

The blast furnace was smelting ores at 1,515 degrees Celsius (2,759 degrees Fahrenheit) to produce three tons of molten iron per minute.

The iron is then moved to casting facilities, in which it is cooled and solidified into intermediate forms such as slabs some 250 millimeters (6 inches) thick.

The tour then continued on to the hot rolling facilities, the final phase of steel making, in which the slabs are rolled with 2,000 tons of pressure. The rolling mills make the slabs just 1 millimeter thick for the final product, coils.

“Restoring the motors, which weigh about 170 tons, is probably one of the toughest processes,” said Son Byoung-rak, a Posco vice president who has been working at the Pohang factory for 46 years.

In order to clean the motors, they have to be separated first. They then must be cleaned and reassembled again, manually.

“Of the 47 motors in the factory, 33 have been completely restored,” Son said. “An expert we previously consulted said it would need at least one year for full restoration, but, see, we are expected to restore all of them by the end of the year, approximately three months after the shutdown.”

A plating facility and a stainless production facility are expected to resume operations in January and February. Posco said the plant will be restored to what it looked like before the typhoon by the end of February.

Posco employees including Sohn and Son attributed the management officials’ pre-emptive measures as the key factor behind the quicker-than-expected restoration.

Posco employees help with the recovery of a hot rolling facility at its Pohang steel plant on Nov. 23. [POSCO]

“The management officials decided not to run the plant starting a day before the typhoon, which was good foresight,” said Cheon Si-yeol, vice director of process quality at the Pohang plant. “If the blast furnaces and rolling facilities had been operating while it was raining, it would’ve been impossible to restore the whole factory.”

As of Nov. 23, some 1 million people had been mobilized to the Pohang steel plant at some point to help with the restoration process. Every day, an average of 15,000 people including Posco employees and Pohang residents visit the plant to lend a helping hand.

“Technology, materials and passion: We have everything set to completely recover the plant to what it was like before the typhoon,” Posco Vice President Son said.

“But we lack one very important thing: the public's encouragement,” Son said. “Thousands of people including employees and Pohang residents are giving it their best effort, so please show us continued support.”

Before beginning the tour of the Pohang steel mill, the press group first visited the river that overflowed when the typhoon hit. A park near the river was no longer much of a park, but rather just wet ground with a blurry bike lane, barely recognizable.

A big Emart in the area remains shut down since the heavy rain, with caution tape wrapped around the entire building.