Nippon Steel Halts Production Lines after Plant Fire

A fire broke out on Tuesday at a Nippon Steel Corp mill in south-west Japan, forcing the world's second-biggest steelmaker to halt the plant's blast furnace and some of its production lines.

There were no reports of injuries.

Nippon Steel said it had not yet been able to assess the damage from the fire, which was burning at several places on a gas pipe and which was not to expected to die out for nearly a day.

The 15 million square-metre plant, called Yawata works, supplies sheet steel to Toyota Motor Corp and Nissan Motor Co's car factories in the area, and also makes a range of products such as bar steel and steel pipes.

It employs 2,950 people and had crude steel output of about four million tonnes in 2007, about 10% of the company's total output.

Shares in Nippon Steel fell on the news to end 2.8% lower at JPY594, compared with a 1.5% drop in the benchmark Nikkei average.

A company spokesman said the fire, which was discovered at 6:37am (21.37 GMT), began on a coke-carrying conveyer belt apparatus that then collapsed, damaging pipes carrying inflammable gas outside the building.

He said the coke plant itself was not on fire but firefighters were dousing it with water to prevent the blaze from spreading.

The blast furnace, two coke plants and some production lines have been halted, including crude steel production, another spokesman said.

TV footage showed flames shooting out from smokestacks and other parts of the plant, and an aerial shot showed the entire plant shrouded in thick black smoke.

A local police spokesman said firefighters were no longer trying to put out the fire, but were instead letting the flames die out to prevent the spread of gases.

"We expect it will take about 20 hours for the flames to go out," he said by telephone.

Carbon monoxide levels were safe for now, but officials were checking for other gases, he added.

Nippon Steel operates nine blast furnaces throughout Japan.

By Yuko Inoue, Reuters