Kobe Steel Ltd and subsidiary Shinko Pantec Co. Ltd have agreed to consider combining Kobe Steel’s environmental business and Shinko Pantec in January 2004. This move would concentrate the management resources of the environmental businesses of the two companies and further strengthen and develop the Kobe Steel Group’s environmental solutions business. Plans call for the two companies to reach agreement on the basic conditions of the consolidation in May 2003. Demand has peaked for municipal solid waste treatment plants to meet stricter dioxin regulations. Soil decontamination, PCB and dioxin treatment, and resource recycling are becoming pressing issues in society. In creating a recycling society, the environmental market is anticipated to expand, as will the need for flexible solutions.
In the waste treatment field, in particular municipal solid waste treatment, Kobe Steel’s broad menu covers pyrolysis melting furnaces, plasma melting furnaces, fluidized-bed furnaces, stoker furnaces and refuse derived fuel systems. Kobe Steel has received high evaluations for the numerous plants it has supplied throughout Japan. In water treatment, Kobe Steel’s strength is in sewage treatment and sludge incineration, melting, and storage. Kobe Steel has been developing advanced sewage treatment technologies and commercialising a non-incineration sludge reduction process, the RESER system, which contributes to reducing carbon-dioxide emissions. Already, Kobe Steel and Niigata Prefecture are jointly conducting research on this process. Shinko Pantec specialises in water treatment and air quality. The company is well regarded as a comprehensive engineering company for water treatment plants and equipment.
