Floating Windmills in Japan Help Wind Down Nuclear Power
Japan is preparing to bolt turbines onto barges and build the world’s largest commercial power plant using floating windmills, tackling the engineering challenges of an unproven technology to cut its reliance on atomic energy. Marubeni Corp., Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Nippon Steel Corp. are among developers erecting a 16-megawatt pilot plant off the coast of Fukushima, site of the nuclear accident which pushed the government to pursue cleaner energy. The project may be expanded to 1,000 megawatts, the trade ministry said, larger than any wind farm fixed to the seabed or on land. “Japan is surrounded by deep oceans, and this poses challenges to offshore wind turbines attached to the bottom of the sea…
Nippon Steel to Move into Offshore Business
Nippon Steel Engineering Co. is bolstering its operating structure in a bid to win contracts spanning everything from design to construction of crude oil and natural gas processing facilities at sea. The Nippon Steel Corp. unit plans to win complete orders for marine central processing platforms, which extract carbon dioxide, mercury and impurities from crude and natural gas drilled from the seabed. To do so, it has beefed up the functions of an Indonesian subsidiary that handles sales and engineering in Southeast Asia and it will begin undertaking some design operations and such work as heat and pipe wear analyses that have been outsourced to date. On top of upgrading a Thai plant, the company has also been hiring local engineers experienced in building central processing platforms.
Japanese Steelmakers Eye Consolidation
Japan's second-largest steelmaker, NKK Corp agreed with two other Japanese firms to consider future integration of their steel plant operations in a bid to combat severe competition. The alliance with heavy electric machinery maker Sumitomo Heavy Industries Ltd. and heavy machinery maker Hitachi Zosen Corp. was prompted partly by the emergence of giant overseas rivals, the three companies said. As the first step of the alliance, the companies will set up a joint venture in March, capitalized at $1.74 million, for sales of a variety of heavy machines used in the steel-making process to the domestic and overseas markets. The new company, which plans to launch operations in April, will be owned 34 percent by NKK, 33 percent by Sumitomo Heavy and 33 percent by Hitachi Zosen.
Nippon Steel to Spend $170m on New Capacity
Reuters reported that Nippon Steel Corp. that it would spend $170m to boost production capacity for high-grade shipbuilding plate at its Oita plant in western Japan by 600,000 tonnes a year. It would be the biggest investment in shipbuilding plates in 30 years for the world's second-biggest steel maker since it installed a shipbuilding plate line at the plant in 1977. The capacity increase is aimed to cope with higher demand for steel used in tankers and container ships, Nippon Steel said. The Oita plant is capable of producing 2.2 million tonnes a year of shipbuilding plates at present. A new machine to roll steel and a second line to cut plates will be introduced at the plant by the first half of 2009, the company said.
