Sociology

Vietnam
Production of still in Vietnam is not majorly export oriented. This is due to the competitiveness of this sector and the high initial investment required. To be able to meet these conditions, Vietnam has come up with a master plan, approved by government in 2001 and expected to and target accomplishment by 2010. Through the Vietnam Steel Corporation, among other stipulations in this master plan include additional construction of electric arc furnaces (GRIPS Development Forum, 2003).

The initiative by the Government of Vietnam to increase the development of electric arc furnaces to enhance production of steel in order to meet cost if investment in the export market and to compete in the export industry approves these method of steel production as financially competent and its quantitatively and qualitatively viable.

The need for production of flat steel is increasing in Vietnams market situation. The production of flat steel is approved of in the master plan. In this plan, production of low quality flat steel is discouraged to avoid a fruitless battle against Russia and Ukraine, producers of very cheap low quality flat steel. Steel production by direct reduced iron (DRI) EAF is becoming more competent in the production of flat steel. This is due to the unstable price of pig iron which has been used to supply virgin iron for the purpose of producing flat steel. This method of electric arc furnace steel production is presently in favor for production of steel in Vietnam to meet financial obligations (Martinis A, 2002).

Entrenchment of the use of EAF in Vietnam is on the rise and this process is also increasingly bearing fruit. Establishment of the Consteel Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) by 2007, production of steel reached a design high. The results of high production attributed to this electric arc furnace (Consteel EAF) set the Consteel solution as the first high priority choice for the establishment of a second melt shop by Pomina and Thiep Viet Steel Group of Vietnam. Pomina and Thiep has contracted metals production specialist Tenova, based in Italy, to supply a new melt shop unit with Consteel EAF. According to the Vietnam Steel Group, this unit will be the largest steel melt shop in Vietnam for long products. Selection of Consteel EAF was done after comparison with other present technologies presently in the market. Its choice was based on the electric arc furnaces properties increasing yield, energy saving, easy operation and flexibility in accepting scrap. The melt shop will be operational by 2011 in Phu Mi Industrial Zone away from Ho Chi Minh City (Ferrous Metals, 2010). This advancement increasingly lays evident on the increasing use of electric arc furnaces in Vietnam to enhance steel production for both long and flat steel.

In Vietnam, steel producers are classified under 3 categories, foreign invested, private enterprises under the Vietnam Steel Corporation (VSC), and private enterprises no under the VSC.  There are a number of major producers of raw steel in Vietnam. To begin with are the Pomino and Thiep Viet Steel Group. They are a leading group in the use of Connsteel EAF as mentioned previously. The group established a leading melt shop earlier in 2007 with a successfully high raw steel production. It is expected to increase production to over 1,000,000 tones of liquid steel per year having 120 tapping size. Preceding the melt shop establishment in 2007, the company is establishing a melt shop at Phu My Industrial Zone. There is the Lion-Vinashin Steel Complex, owned by Lion and Vinashin, located in Minh, Phuoc District, NinhThaun with a capacity of 14.4 million tonnes per year which was licensed in September 20th 2008. The other company is Tata Steel Complex under the Vietnam Steel complex located in Vung Ang Economic Zone in Ha Tinh with a production capacity of 4.55 million tonnes per year. It was completed in September 2008 after the signing of an MOU in 2007. Another company worth taken note of is Tycoons E-United steel complex, which is jointly owned by Tycoons (90) and E-United (10). The company is located at Dung Quat Economic Zone, in Quang Ngai and began in October 2007. It has a total production of 5 million tonnes per year. (VSA, 2008).

Steel production in Vietnam has been on a stable increase rate attributable to the use of the electric arc furnace. DRI EAF is becoming more and more popular. This is due to the unstable prices of pig iron which has traditionally been used to produce various types of steel, more specifically flat steel. Evidence to this is the increasing rate of the installation of EAFs as seen with Pomino and Thiep Viet steel group among others. It also happened that it was only Vietnam that was able to make profits out of steel production in 2006. This can not be singly attributed to the use of EAFs though their input is significant. Vietnam can however not be said to have so richly embraced the art of EAFs since Basic Oxygen Furnace still holds a slender majority in the production of steel in South Asian countries.


Malaysia
Steel production in Malysia was predicted to decline following global economic downturn with an expected drop of 39 percent in 2009. In the preceding year, still productions dropped by 1.4 percent (Malaysia Metal Report, 2009). This thereby calls for effective solutions to be able to curb the problem. Malaysia depends greatly on the export of steel as a source of revenue for its economy and financial obligations. Due to this and increase in global demand for steel, the solution has been the optimization of electric arc furnace according to Mohd Yakut for Perwaja Steel. Increase in cost of steel production mostly resulting from high cost of production due to high price of electricity, Perwaja Steel is working with University of Malaysia to increase chemical energy for their electric arc furnaces to supplement the use of electric energy (Yakub, Khairul Mohd, 2008). This gives an instant of the prominence of the electric arc furnace and its simplicity in modification to solve problems in steel production. Perwaja Steel is one of the main users of the EAF for the production of steel. Currently Perwaja Steel is reknown for its production of Direct Reduced Steel (DRI), which is used as an alternative to scrap or pig iron in the production of steel. This is because of the cleaner content of DRI (Malaysia Steel Industry, 2010).

Megasteel, a company under The Lion Group, in Malaysia uses fully automated state of the art Direct Current Electric Arc furnace-Compact Strip Production (EAF-CSP). This makes it the only mill in the country to use CSP technology for the production of high quality still, which accrues to significantly high yield and is energy saving (The Lion Group, 2010).

Antara Steel Mills and Amsteel mills use among other facilities electric arc furnaces for the production of steel bars, wire rods and channels. With this they are able to produce high quality billets, which include special grade billets for formation of specialty bars and high grade rods for stringent applications (The Lion Group, 2010). Amsteel Mills is also currently popular with the production of Direct Reduced Iron used as an alternative to scrap (Malaysia Steel Industry, 2010).
Presently the major bulk of steel in Malaysia is produced using the electric arc furnace (EAF), remelting scrap iron or using scrap irons alternatives such as direct reduced iron (DRI) or HBI leading to the production of molten steel. Scrap, the main ingredient in the production of steel is majorly imported since the local supply is not sufficient. This implies that, though alternatives of scrap may be used in the production of molten steel, scrap is still used in Malaysia even with the advantage derived from the use of DRI and HBI. This may be caused by the reason that only Perwaja Steel and Armsteel Mills are the only producers of DRI and HBI at the moment. However, DRI and HBI command a premium over scrap (Malaysia Steel Industry, 2010).

Use of the electric arc furnace as the major route for production of steel, Malaysia has a number of companies producing steel under this bracket. The major companies may include Megasteel which is a member of the Lion Group as well as Amsteel Mills, and Antara Steel Mills, still under the Lions Group. Also in the list of companies producing steel using electric arc furnace is Perwaja Steel.
Amsteel Mills which is under the Lion Group commenced operations in 1978. The company among the leading still producers in Malaysia and it operates 3 rolling mills. The companys steel melt shop is capable of producing a capacity of 750,000 tones per annum. The company operates as a Private Limited Company, based locally. It is located at Lot 1, Jalan Waja, Bukit Raja Industrial Estate (JobStreet.com, 2010).

Antara Mills, being an industry under the Lion Group began operation on 1st April 1981. It is classified as a heavy industry organization requiring a very large work force. It is located at Jalang Gangsa 1 Pasir Gudang Industrial Estate. Presently it holds 765 employs and has a production of between 750,000 and 950,000 tones of raw steel per annum.

Steel production in Malaysia takes center stage in the income of revenue responsible for running the countries budget. The countrys steel industry significantly relays on electric arc furnace for the production of raw steel. It uses DRI and HBI as substitutes to the use of scrap to produce molten steel. The country however still uses scrap that is majorly imported to produce molten steel.

 The significance of using EAF cannot be over emphasized. It however caters for the significantly large bulk of steel produced by Malaysia. Though production in the recent past has been greatly affected by increased costs of resources in the country and even globally, the high demand for steel, locally and globally has played a significant role in ensuring the production levels and profits accrued from still are still reasonable.            


Indonesia
The countrys steel production has been going through very difficult times due to a number of reasons. To begin with, the country has a very high reliance on imports of basic items. The only integrated steel industry in the country is PT Krakatau Steel which is state owned producing among other steel products, sponge iron, hot rolled coil, cold rolled coil but still imports steel pellets for the formation of sponge iron. Other steel industries comprise of private industries.

The country however still uses the electric arc furnace in the production of steel slab used in the formation of hot rolled steel coils and steel plates. Notable is the fact that, due o the cash crisis in 19971998, the country halted many of its projects in the still industry which was also the case for the private industries. Due to this, even to the fourth quarter of 2005, the country has been facing stiff competition for its still due cheap steel imports from neighboring South East Asia steel producing countries. In the production of its steel slab, the country uses 80 percent of sponge iron and 20 percent of steel scrap. This means that the country does not engage in the production of Direct Reduced Iron for the production of steel, which is the contrast of other countys such as Malaysia and Vietnam (Profile of Steel Industry in Indonesia, 2006).

However, the country has been experiencing increased growth in the production of steel production in the first half of 2008 (ASEAN Steel Industry, 2009). This can however not be attributed directly to use of electric arc furnace use in the country. The general growth in the use of the electric arc furnaces in the country has not witnessed significant activity in the recent past. The changes are more attributable to the countrys recovery from the impact of global economic downturn.

There are a number of companies in the country theta have registered pronounced use of the electric arc furnace all the same. PT Gunung Raja Paksi is one of these companies. It is a member of the Gunung Garuda Group and was established in 1998 but begun functioning in the year 2000. It was among the latest entrants of the steel plate industries by 2006. It uses mainly used machines imported from Sweden and has its raw steel processed to hot rolled coils. Its production of raw steel can only be implied therefore by the figures obtained from HR plates it produces, 350,000 tones and 150,000 tones of HRC (Profile of Steel Industry in Indonesia, 2006).

The PT Gunawan Group is also involved in steel production by use of EAF through its two companies, PT Gunawan Dianjaya Steel and PT Jaya Pari Steel. PT Gunawan Dian Jaya Steel is located in a 15 hectare land and use US technology in production of its steel. The amount of raw steel produced by this country can also only be quantified by implication of the amount of plates it produces. The company uses basic material entirely imported and 80 percent of its output is exported (Profile of Steel Industry in Indonesia, 2006).

PT Jaya Pari Steel, a sister company to the latter was publicly listed in 1989. The company has an annual production capacity of 100,000 tones.

From the foregoing, Indonesia almost fully depends on steel production by use of the electric furnace production. It also entirely depends on scrap for its production and does not use Direct Reduced Iron. The production of steel in this country was only pronounced before the early 90s. Production of steel since then has been constantly reducing through the years. The raise in levels of production even after an economic recession has not been significant. This is majorly due to the over reliance in imported products by the residents of the country. Steel consumption though increasing in recent times has been poor. The results of these are a less innovative industry in steel production. Indonesia has not shown improvement in the recent past in their modes of steel production. Most of the companies are using used or old machinery and technology is not a breast with the modern time. A lot really needs to be done on Indonesias scheme of production.

In conclusion, Indonesia is highly dependent on steel production through electric arc furnace. Use of direct reduced iron is however insignificant and almost absent. Scrap is majorly used to produce raw steel.