Kakogawa Steel Works () is Kobe Steel, Ltd.'s ironworks in Kakogawa, Hyogo, Japan, established in 1969. It is responsible for about 80 percent of the company's

iron and steel Ferrous metallurgy is the metallurgy of iron and its alloys. The earliest surviving prehistoric iron artifacts, from the 4th millennium BC in Egypt, were made from meteoritic iron-nickel. It is not known when or where the smelting of iron fro ...

production.

In general

Kakogawa Steel Works started in 1969 in the reclaimed land on the Inland Sea, in the south of Kakogawa City, with th
plate mill
using the hot slabs shipped from Kobe Steel Works, its main ironworks at that time, located in Kobe City. Iron plates mainly for the shipbuilding industry were important to the company because it is also a large producer of

welding rods Plastic welding is welding for semi-finished plastic materials, and is described in ISO 472 as a process of uniting softened surfaces of materials, generally with the aid of heat (except solvent welding). Welding of thermoplastics is accomplishe ...

at its Fujisawa works. In 1970, a blast furnace was added in Kakogawa. (Kobe Steel Works stopped its last remaining blast furnace in 2017.) Later, a hot rolling mill, a cold rolling mill, and iron bar/ iron pipes mills were added. It is an "integrated" steel works.

Titanium Titanium is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Ti and atomic number 22. Found in nature only as an oxide, it can be reduced to produce a lustrous transition metal with a silver color, low density, and high strength, resista ...

processing mill is also located here, Kobe Steel having handled Titanium since 1954.History of Titanium Processing in Japan
/ref> Currently, about 80 percent of Kobe Steel's

production is done in Kakogawa. Since 2007, only two of the three blast furnaces are in service.

Environmental concern

Since Kakogawa compared to the city 50 years ago is now a big city with population of about 300,000, and has expanded to the coastal areas at the mouth of the Kakogawa River, next to the ironworks,

pollution Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the ...

from the material yards of iron ore and

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...

has become serious, depending on the direction of the wind. Dust-prevention nets have recently been installed in the neighboring residential area.

Data

*Space: 510 hectares *Employees: about 2,500 *Annual pig iron production: 6,000,000 tons (the fifth largest in Japan)

Transportation

*Twenty minutes by taxi from West Japan Railway Company 's

Kakogawa Station is a passenger railway station located in the city of Kakogawa, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, operated by the West Japan Railway Company (JR West). Lines Kakogawa Station is served by the JR San'yō Main Line, and is located 39.1 kilometers from ...

*Ten minutes by taxi from

Sanyo Electric Railway is a Japanese private railway operating company based in western Hyōgo Prefecture. It runs local and express rail service between Himeji and Kobe, and also connects directly with Hanshin Main Line to Osaka. Although the Hanshin Electric R ...

's Befu Station *Twenty minutes from Japan National Route 2's Kakogawa Bypass (exit at Kakogawa-Higashi Interchange)

References

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External links