By Naoki Kawaguchi / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

Japan's top steelmaker Nippon Steel Corp. began construction of an electric arc furnace in Kitakyushu, southwestern Japan, on Wednesday. Once completed, the electric arc furnace will be one of the largest in the world.

The electric arc furnace is set to begin operating in the second half of fiscal 2029, which ends March 2030.

The steelmaker will invest heavily in the electric arc furnace. It will be located in the Tobata area, which covers about 7 million square meters of the Yawata section of the company's Kyushu Works. Construction will involve renovating about half of the Tobata area.

Currently, Nippon Steel operates a blast furnace in the Yawata section -- the last one running in Kitakyushu, a city widely regarded as the birthplace of modern steelmaking in Japan. The steelmaker will replace the blast furnace with the electric arc furnace as part of decarbonization efforts.

Electric arc furnaces, which melt scrap iron using electricity, can significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions compared to blast furnaces, which require coal. Nippon Steel will invest 630.2 billion yen to build the electric arc furnace and related facilities. The furnace will have a capacity of producing about 2 million tons of crude steel annually.

During construction, significant changes to the Tobata area will be made, as Nippon Steel will decommission a coke plant and a converter that will no longer be needed. A new scrapyard will also be built.

"(Nippon Steel) will take on a new, major endeavor in the place that has a 125-year history (of steelmaking)," Masahiro Nakata, head of the company's Kyushu Works, said at the groundbreaking ceremony on Wednesday.

Nippon Steel plans to shut down the blast furnace in the first half of fiscal 2030, marking an end of blast furnace operations in Kitakyushu, which once boasted more than ten, following the establishment of the state-run Yawata Steel Works.

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This article is from The Yomiuri Shimbun. Neither Dow Jones Newswires, MarketWatch, Barron's nor The Wall Street Journal were involved in the creation of this content.

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April 17, 2026 05:23 ET (09:23 GMT)

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