Hoa Phat Group (HPG), Vietnam's largest steelmaking group, witnessed a 16% month-on-month increase in its sales of billet, construction steel, coated coils, and hot-rolled coil (HRC), reaching 805,000 tonnes in April, according to the Hanoi-based group's new release.
The company produced 738,000 tonnes of crude steel last month, a slight 0.4% decrease from March. The relatively low level of steel inventory at agents and distributors prompted Hoa Phat to import additional steel products in April, enabling the steel mill to boost its sales of construction steel across Vietnam.
In April, Hoa Phat's sales of HRC eased by 4% month-on-month to 252,000 tonnes, while its sales of steel pipes and galvanized steel sheets surged by 66.7% and 50% month-on-month, respectively, reaching 70,000 tonnes and 48,000 tonnes.
From January to April, Hoa Phat's sales volume of steel products jumped by 47.2% year-on-year to 2.65 million tonnes, with 95,200 tonnes exported, as per the HPG release.
The release also highlighted that by early May, Hoa Phat had completed more than half of the scheduled work progress on its current expansion project, the Hoa Phat Dung Quat II Iron and Steel Complex.
This project, with an annual production capacity of 5.6 million tonnes of HRC, is scheduled to commence operations in the first quarter of 2025 and will increase HPG's total crude steel capacity from the current 8.5 million tonnes per year – the largest in Southeast Asia – to over 14 million tonnes per year.
