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Crude Steel Production 2007

Monthly statistics for Crude Steel Production 2007

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Crude Steel Production 2007 part 1

Crude Steel Production 2007 part 2

Crude Steel Production 2007 Part 3

Crude Steel Production 2007 Part 4

ET reported that TATA Steel is planning to form an international company for consolidating its raw material assets that are spread across the world and which could eventually be used to raise funds for future acquisitions.

Mr Koushik Chatterjee group CFO of TATA Steel said that “We will reorganize our group structure to unlock shareholder value over the next 6 to 12 months for growth in raw material assets and new market strategies. We are looking at an overseas group structure below TATA Steel to create the appetite for acquisitions. Since it would require capital, we are looking at various options.”

Mr B Muthuraman MD of TATA Steel said that “Ownership of raw materials and a continuous improvement in production has been the key to TATA Steel’s profitability. In fact we have believed in owning raw materials for the past 100 years.”

In addition to mining assets in India TATA Steel also owns raw material assets such as coal and limestone mines through joint ventures or completely, with the assets spread across countries such as Australia, Oman and Mozambique. brought to you from steelguru.com

Novolipetsk Steel has won the 2007 Best Russian Exporter contest in the category of Ferrous Metals – Best Exporter in the Industry”. The award ceremony was held on  20 June, 2008 in Moscow. 

The contest was held by the Ministry of Industry and  Trade of the Russian Federation as part of the State Support Program of the Russian Federation Export Development. The winners were named based on consolidated export figures reported by the companies.   

In 2007 NLMK Group supplied its products to more than 80 countries across the world. Higher added value products supply increased by 5% compared to 2006, and their share of the sales structure amounted to 21%. These changes are in line with NLMK Group’s long-term strategy of targeting downstream product supplies. In particular, electrical steel sales volumes increased achieving 10% of the total volume in 2007. Strong demand in foreign markets fostered hot-rolled steel supplies, increasing their share to 19%. NLMK Group’s total export sales revenue amounted to USD 4,815 billion

ET reported that Maharashtra Seamless Limited is in the race to acquire an Indonesia based iron ore mining firm for around INR 300 crore. It is learnt that the Indonesian firm has iron ore reserves of close to 20 million tonne. If the deal goes through, Maharashtra Seamless would also establish a 1 million tonne steel plant close to the iron ore deposits in Indonesia with investments of up to INR 1,200 crore.

Company sources said that it would resort to internal accruals to fund the proposed steel project as well as the acquisition. As part of the backward integration initiatives, it had planned to set up its first steel plant in Orissa. However, if the deal with the mining firm goes through, the plant would instead come up in Indonesia considering the proximity to iron ore reserves.

According to the industry sources, the acquisition of the Indonesian iron ore mining company would help MSL meet iron ore requirements for its proposed steel plant. The steel plant, in turn, would serve as a raw material source for company’s seamless pipes and tubes business.

Maharashtra Seamless plans to add another 150,000 tonne by de bottlenecking the existing capacity of 3.5 million tonnes, located at Raigad in Maharashtra, with an additional investment of close to INR 100 crore. Presently, MSL supplies wide range of pipes and tubes to various domestic industries, primarily oil and gas, for exploration activities. brought to you from steelguru.com

ArcelorMittal announced JV in China

ArcelorMittal the largest Steel producer in the world announced on Friday that they would launch a flat carbon steel JV partnership with Hunan Valin Group and Hunan Valin Steel.   Hunan Valin Steel will own 34 percent in the new joint venture while ArcelorMittal and Hunan Valin Group will each have a 33 percent stake.   This new joint venture will have an annual production capacity of 1.2 million tonnes of flat carbon steel, that will be used mostly for automotive applications.  Products will include cold rolled steel, galvannealed steel and pure zinc galvanized steel.

A report by the American Iron and Steel Institute was released today showing that there was a 18% decline in may, 2008 steel imports over april, 2008.  The U.S. importred a total of 2,451,000 (NT) of steel in may 2008, including 1,998,000 (NT) of finished steel.  For the first 5 months of 2008 total and finished steel imports are down by 11% and 14%, respectively vs the same period in 2007.  However, in the most recent 3 months March-May 2008 is up 10% vs the monthly average in the previous 3 months (Dec. 2007 – Feb. 2008)

U.S. Steel Imports May 2008

Total and finished steel imports on an annualized basis this year are down 5 percent and 6 percent, respectively, vs. 2007. On an annualized basis, total imports of steel in 2008 would be 31.6 million NT. Key products with large increases in May compared to the month before include: Sheet & Strip Galvanized Hot Dipped (up 89%), Oil Country Goods (up 21%), Heavy Structural Shapes (up 15%) and Cold Rolled Sheets (up 10%). For the first five months of 2008, products showing significant increases vs. the same period in 2007 included Oil Country Goods (up 17%) and Line Pipe (up 16%).

 

  U.S. May 2008 finished steel imports by country of orgin

For May, the largest volume of finished steel imports from offshore was from China (287,000 NT, up 59% from April), which recorded its highest monthly volume of the year. Much of this tonnage was in high-value steel products still receiving government export tax rebates (e.g., OCTG, line pipe and hot-dipped galvanized sheet). Other major offshore suppliers in May included South Korea (199,000 NT, down 6% from April), Japan (118,000 NT, down 30%), India (96,000 NT, up 16%) and Germany (81,000 NT, down 44%). Below is a summary chart of finished imports by country.

Steel Prices on the rise

Its 2008 and oil prices are at there highest in history, the world is finally realizing after years of prices rising that oil is limited and that we need to figure out an alternative to oil. Well the government has been tooting corn and soy beans as alternative crops to make bio diesel. Mean while that is not cost effective all it is doing is rising the price of food around the world.  personally in the research I have done the government needs to forget corn and soy beans as a bio fuel alternative and spend all there efforts on Algae. Ok now that I said that lets get back to the point every where you look these days things are looking bad that is for the average Joe. 

      Steel is no different in fact it has probably risen more in price then most everything else in the last 6 months Certain steel products have more then doubled, that means worse news for the bank account and higher prices for things like Autos.  Normally I wouldn’t be so opinionated but it is something that needs to be said, so I will put in my 2 cents again and say maybe the US should pull out of a war they should never have gotten into in the first place and start spending all that lost wasted money on renewable energies. With all that has been spent on the war to date the US could have been created enough renewable energies that the US would literally need no more oil imports. This alone would bring prices down in the US and would have kept the US in a boom economy for many years to come.  Imagine lower cost at the pumps, lower electricity cost and all the money staying in the country and not being spent over sea’s would be enough to lower cost world wide for gas, steel, food , transportation and much more.  Just my 2 cents don’t listen to me I am just writing.

The Luxembourg steelmaker ArcelorMittal said Monday it will buy Bayou Steel Corp.

One of ArcelorMittal Steel mill’s below

ArcelorMittal Steel Mill

      Bayou Steel Corp. operates a minimill on the Mississippi River in LaPlace, and has a rolling mill in Harriman, Tenn.  They also run an automobile shredder at the LaPlace plant, barge wrecking and scrap yards in LaPlace, and a plant in Harvey. they employ 630 people and in 2007 generated revenue of $331 million on 510,000 tons of finished product.
  

      ArcelorMittal North America CEO Jos Jacque, said  “We are excited by the opportunity that this acquisition represents as it further strengthens … our product portfolio, customer base and distribution network in North America.”  For those that don’t know already ArcelorMittal is the worlds largest steel company and has been expanding over the last couple years and seems like they have no plans to slow down in the near future.  ArcelorMittal says it will invest 25 billion in the India steel market and is interested in expanding there operations in china as well.  On another note as long as the dollar is weak we will probably see more buyouts from foreign steel companies, because exports from the nation’s mills are more competitive.

      Bayou Steel went through bankruptcy several years ago and emerged from it in 2004. In 2006, after several months of seeking takeover bids, Bayou Steel agreed to be acquired by Black Diamond Capital Management LLC.

The purchase by ArcelorMittal is subject to regulatory approval.

ASTM A710 Grade B

Table of contents for New Types of Steel

  1. ASTM A710 Grade B

ASTM A710 Grade B the name of a high-performance structural steel A copper-precipitation-hardened, high-performance Grade 70 weathering steel and was developed at developed at Northwestern University with the support of the Federal Highway Administration, the Illinois Department of Transportation, and Northwestern University’s Infrastructure Technology Institute.

The steel is not only stronger then conventional high-performance structural steel it is also cheaper and easier to make and needs less maintenance then conventional high-performance structural steel. The steel was designed to achieve a minimum of 70 ksi yield strength on air cooling from hot rolling without quenching and tempering (Q&T), accelerated cooling or thermomechanically-controlled processing (TMCP). This allows for elimination of alloying elements needed for hardenability as well as a low carbon content, resulting in a very low carbon equivalent for welding. As a result, its processing cost is less than for Q&T or TMCP steels. For steelmakers, this means that special equipment for Q&T or TMCP is not required.

ASTM A710 Grade B steel possesses high Charpy absorbed impact fracture energies at really low temperatures. By the addition of titanium (up to 0.1%) which combines with interstitial atoms, the absorbed impact fracture energy further increases. This addition lowers the yield stress to 60 Ksi minimum but increases the Charpy Absorbed Impact Fracture Energy to more than 265 ft-lbs at -80oF

Because of its very low carbon equivalent, ASTM A710 Grade B steel typically does not require pre-heat or post-heat amid welding with matching welding consumables. Weatherability of ASTM A710 Grade B steel is more suitable than that of any other commercially available weathering steel. Paint on this steel resists degeneration much better than on other weathering steels.

This steel does not contain intended additions of chromium. This is of interest because of health and environmental hazards due to accumulation of carcinogenic Cr+6 well welding.

The combination of these properties can result in significant cost savings when this steel is used instead of other structural steels.

This form of steel has been around for a couple years now ASTM A710 Grade B steel was used in 2000 to retrofit the I-55/I-64/I-70/US-40 Poplar Street Bridge Complex over the Mississippi River, East St. Louis, Illinois. High strength steel was required for the retrofit because of weight limitations and for the high fracture energy that was required for seismic redundancy.

In 2006 this steel was used for construction of a bridge in Lake Villa, Illinois. For the north Milwaukee Avenue Bridge, 500 tons of steel plates were produced and fabricated into girders. The bridge was not painted, resulting in a significant savings in construction and maintenance costs.

ASTM A710 Grade B steel can be used in applications that require high strength, good fracture toughness at low temperatures, easy welding, good weatherability and corrosion resistance. These potential applications include:

  • bridges
  • ships
  • tank cars
  • pipe lines
  • oil platforms
  • guard rails and sign poles
  • tall buildings for wind and seismic resistance
  • power and illumination towers
  • construction and mining equipment
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