Authorities shut illegal steel plant over 2025 steel law breach

Thai authorities have ordered BNSS Steel Group Co Ltd to cease operations immediately after inspectors found the company had breached Thailand’s 2025 restrictions on steel factory establishment and expansion. The order follows a fresh inspection at the company’s plant in WHA Chonburi 1 Industrial Estate.

Pornyod Klankrong, Director-General of the Department of Industrial Works, said officials inspected the factory on April 9, 2026, and found that the company had previously been granted permission by the Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand to use land and operate a steel manufacturing business at the estate since 1993.

However, the department said the company had never formally notified the authorities that it had begun operations, yet was found to have illegally produced steel that did not comply with industrial product standards. Officials also said the company had committed multiple breaches of factory law, including improper industrial waste management and failure to comply with its environmental impact assessment and licensing conditions.

Although the Industrial Estate Authority had repeatedly ordered the company to suspend operations and rectify the factory, the company continued to defy those orders. Its permit to use the land and operate the steel business was eventually revoked on May 13, 2025, ending its legal status as a factory from that date onward.

Pornyod said that under the Industry Ministry’s 2025 regulation, approved by the Cabinet, the establishment or expansion of factories producing reinforcing steel bars or small billets for reinforced concrete steel is banned nationwide. The measure was introduced to tackle oversupply and low capacity utilisation, while protecting stability in Thailand’s steel industry and the wider economy.

That means once the company lost its factory status, it could no longer legally resume steel production under the current rules, he said.

Even so, the latest inspection found that BNSS Steel Group had illegally installed machinery and carried out test runs in preparation to restart factory operations. This happened despite the fact that the Industrial Estate Authority had reissued permission for land use and steel business operations on March 16, 2026. The Department of Industrial Works said those actions still violated the 2025 legal ban on setting up or expanding such steel factories anywhere in the country.

The department has now issued a final order for the company to stop operations immediately and said it would pursue legal action against those responsible to the fullest extent. BNSS Steel Group is described as a major producer of billets, reinforcing steel bars and steel sections, with annual production capacity of 135,000 tonnes of billets and 65,000 tonnes of steel bars.