ABSTRACT
Japan’s crude-steel production peaked in 1974. It was less than 100 million tons in 1998 and 1999, but since 2000 Japan has produced more than 100 million tons of crude steel. Japan produced 116.2 million tons in 2006, of which 86.0 million tons was produced by steel converters, 74.0 percent of the total. The remaining 26.0 percent was produced by electric furnaces (www.jisf.or.jp/data/seisan/index.html). As is apparent in Figure 4.1, Japan no longer has any open-hearth furnace steel production. Advanced countries, such as Korea, do not use the open-hearth method for crude-steel production, although roughly 22 percent of Russia’s 2005 steel production was made in open hearths (Steel Statistics Handbook 2006, pp. 40-5).
