Yieh Phui Enterprise Co (燁輝), the nation’s largest manufacturer of galvanized steel, yesterday said two new galvanized and pre-painted steel production lines would start operations in the first half of this year.
The company, which operates several plants in Taiwan and China, has yearly production capacity of 2.1 million tonnes of galvanized steel and 720,000 tonnes of pre-painted steel, company data showed.
“The two production lines will help expand the company’s capacity this year,” Yieh Phui vice president Chen Yung-hsien (陳永賢) told the Taipei Times by telephone.
The two new production lines are expected to churn out 200,000 tonnes of galvanized steel and 300,000 tonnes of pre-painted steel annually, he said.
Seventy percent of the two lines’ output is to supply the firm’s Chinese customers, while the remaining 30 percent is to be sold to customers in the US, Europe and elsewhere, he said.
The growth momentum from rising global steel prices, which helped drive earnings growth for steelmakers in the second half of last year, is expected to continue through the first half of this year, Chen said.
“China’s reforms to curb oversupply have ensured price stability in the global steel industry, and positive effects on prices are expected to be sustained in the near term,” he said.
By the end of last year, hot-rolled steel plates reached US$450 per tonne, a nearly 60 percent increase from the same period in 2015.
“We are optimistic about this year’s shipments, thanks to improving sentiment in global markets,” Chen said, citing the US as one of the company’s major markets.
For the whole of last year, Yieh Phui shipped 300,000 tonnes of steel products to the US, almost 10 percent of the company’s current production capacity.
Apart from its core carbon steel business, the company plans to increase its presence in the global steel market by raising its stakes in stainless steelmaking peers this year.
Last week, Yieh Phui announced the acquisition of shares of Yieh United Steel Corp’s (燁聯) two major subsidiaries in the stainless steel sector. Yieh Phui and Yieh United are subsidiaries of E-United Group (義聯集團), which operates E-Da Theme Park and several other companies in Kaohsiung.
Yieh Phui’s consolidated revenue last year totaled NT$52.85 billion (US$1.69 billion), up 6.15 percent from the same period in 2015, company data showed.
Rising steel prices and efficient cost controls helped boost the company’s net profit in the first three quarters of last year to NT$1.81 billion, compared with a net loss of NT$376 million in the same period in 2015, the data showed.
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