Taiwanese Formosa Plastics Begun The Construction of The First Blast Furnace of Steel Mill

It's reported that Taiwanese Formosa Plastics has just begun the construction of the first blast furnace of the steel mill in Vung Ang economic zone.

However, industry experts feared that the project may bring unpredictable consequences.

The Formosa steel project has the total investment capital of 15 billion dollars which would be carried out in two phases. Each phase is consisted by construction of three blast furnaces.

With the annual capacity of the first phase designed to be 10.5 million tons and the second phase at 12 million tons, the Formosa steel project totals 22.5 million tons of capacity a year.

The first blast furnace with 3.5 million tons of annual capacity in the first phase is planned to be operational by late May 2015.

It is said that if everything goes as scheduled, the project would fulfill a yearly 3 million tons of hot rolled steel demand that are still replying on import.

Besides, Formosa would become a big rival to the domestic steel mills on structural steel, the kind of products which are already abundant in Vietnam.