Weekly Supply Chain in Asia 2026-W39 (2026-09-17~2026-09-23)

Hyundai Steel’s USD 5.8 billion Louisiana steel mill came into clearer view as local agreements were released, and Texas paused new data center permits until a grid audit is complete. Elsewhere, Winbond agreed to buy Infineon’s NOR flash and FRAM business, Trans Mountain courted Asian buyers for Canadian crude, and a fourth fire broke out at the Moss Landing battery storage site.

This Week’s Events

A Louisiana Steel Mill and a Texas Permit Pause

Hyundai Steel, in partnership with Hyundai Motor, Kia, and Posco, is building the USD 5.8 billion HPLS integrated steel mill in Ascension Parish, Louisiana, aiming to produce automotive steel locally for the carbon-reduced supply chains of Hyundai Motor, Kia, and other US automakers. Near the mill, “Project Cayman” is developing 2.88GW of natural gas power generation and battery energy storage systems (BESS). Key permits remain pending, including air emission permits from the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality and port construction permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Separately, in Texas, Governor Greg Abbott has ordered a moratorium on new data center permits until the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) completes a grid stability audit. More than 1,800 connection requests totaling 474GW are pending, about 90% of them from AI data centers. Abbott said data center projects must show that they pay the full cost of their power infrastructure, do not use water their communities need, and can lower residents’ electricity bills.

A Memory Divestment and a Possible US NAND Plant

Infineon Technologies has agreed to sell its NOR flash and FRAM business to Winbond Electronics for USD 1.12 billion. Infineon says the sale lets it concentrate its portfolio and capital on core growth drivers, and Winbond will run the business as an independent San Jose-based entity named “Spansion” to expand its global R&D resources and supply capacity. Separately, Solidigm, a sub-subsidiary of SK Hynix, is evaluating the construction of a NAND flash factory in Upstate New York. Reuters said a U.S. factory would lower Solidigm’s dependence on its only NAND facility, in Dalian, China, and could mitigate the impact of U.S. tariffs against China and chip equipment export rules; SK Hynix says no specific plans have been finalized.

Crude and LNG Supply

Trans Mountain, a Canadian state-owned pipeline operator, is expanding its crude oil export customer base in Asia, including Korea and Japan, to reduce reliance on single-country markets. The operator plans to increase transport capacity from approximately 890,000 bpd to 1.2 million bpd by the end of 2028. Because Canadian crude is largely heavy and similar in properties to Middle Eastern grades, it is drawing attention as an alternative while Middle Eastern supply is disrupted. Separately, GS Energy Trading Singapore has signed a long-term LNG purchase contract with PTT International Trading, the trading arm of Thailand’s state-owned PTT Group. GS Energy runs long-term contracts alongside spot purchases and adds PTT as a long-term supplier, while PTT is expanding LNG cooperation with Korean companies to target the North Asian market.

Defense and Manufacturing Innovation

LIG Defense & Aerospace is collaborating with Firehawk to develop solid rocket motors using 3D-printed propellant technology. The two companies will jointly develop and produce solid rocket motors for 70-140mm tactical weapon platforms, and LIG Defense & Aerospace is expected to use Firehawk’s local propulsion technology and production base to diversify its guided rocket supply chain and raise its competitiveness in North America. LIG is also reviewing local US production of its Bi-Gung guided rocket. In the industrial automation sector, Kawasaki Heavy Industries has released “Plesio,” a force-feedback remote-operation device for its Successor robot system. Its intended use is hazardous high-temperature work such as skimming slag from 1,500-degree Celsius molten metal, through a furnace-front robot system jointly developed with Fuji Electric, Sojitz Machinery, and Sanmei Kiko. The technology addresses labor shortages and the loss of technical skills by enabling the recording and reproduction of expert manual techniques in high-temperature environments.

Policy and Safety

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a package of three bills—the BRACE Act, CHARM Act, and EMRTAI—to modernize battery recycling regulations and establish a national mineral recovery strategy. The BRACE Act is expected to ease permitting requirements and costs for recycling, and Korean battery makers such as Samsung SDI, LG Energy Solution, and SK On could lower waste battery procurement costs and diversify supply chains if the easing materializes. Separately, a fourth fire broke out at the Moss Landing ESS facility in California, which utilized LG Energy Solution’s TR 1300 battery rack system. The incident ignited approximately 1,200 residual battery modules during the cleanup that followed the January 2025 fire, and local communities and politicians are calling for the safety management of large lithium-ion batteries to be re-examined from scratch.

In Brief

Hyundai Steel met with the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) in Shanghai to discuss mutual recognition of carbon emission evaluation and certification systems; mutual recognition would reduce duplicate evaluations under differing national carbon standards, which matters as carbon data becomes central to CBAM compliance.

A semiconductor forum in Gwangju failed to attract participation from Samsung Electronics or SK Hynix. The government is seeking to spread new semiconductor investment beyond the saturated Yongin and Pyeongtaek clusters, and the Japanese writer who spoke at the forum doubts the Gwangju project can succeed without the two companies’ support.

Nvidia has committed an additional USD 1.5 billion to SB Energy, bringing its total investment to USD 3 billion. SB Energy is developing large-scale data center infrastructure in the U.S., with 8.8 GW of capacity contracted or under construction.

Company in Focus

Hyundai Steel — The Hyundai Motor Group’s steelmaker and the only Korean blast-furnace operator besides POSCO, supplying the sheet that becomes its own group’s car bodies and, increasingly, plate for shipbuilders. It made steel only in electric arc furnaces until 2010, when it fired its first blast furnace at a Dangjin mill bought from Hanbo Steel.