Japan’s oldest steel mill is venturing into recycling the industrial metal to tackle climate change and survive a race with Chinese mills.
Nippon Steel Corp. has been making steel from mined iron and coal in blast furnaces for more than a century. But as competition heats up, President Eiji Hashimoto called on his staff last month to examine an alternative process that recycles steel from scrap in an electric-arc furnace to cut costs and help it expand in emerging Asian economies.
Nippon Steel has so far distanced itself from electric-arc furnaces partly because of technological hurdles in making high-end steel even though its units and affiliates have used the technology. Electric-arc furnaces are estimated to release only a fourth of the carbon dioxide compared with traditional furnaces, according to Tokyo Steel Manufacturing Co., Japan’s biggest maker of recycled steel.