PT Krakatau Posco, the Indonesian joint venture between PT Krakatau and Korea’s Posco, has made no final decision on plans to double steelmaking capacity at the 3 million tonne/year slab plant, according to local media. The company is concerned by the slowdown in the global steel market and falling prices, it adds.

The plant made its first shipment in January 2014 and currently operates 3m t/y of slabmaking and 1.2m t/y of plate capacity. A second phase was to add another 3m t/y of steelmaking and potentially hot rolling, cold rolling and galvanizing capacity.

A decision on the second phase was to be made this year but the venture is looking closely at the market situation to see whether an expansion is justified, according to the director of business development and technology, Marsidon Simanungkalit quoted in Indonesia’s Industri.

The plant is 70%-owned by PT Krakatau which is expanding more aggressively. It plans to commission 1.25m t/y of blast furnace capacity by the end of August and its HRC capacity is due to hit 3.9m t/y in 2017, as previously reported by Kallanish.