Posted on 12 Jul 2024
HBIS-POSCO Automotive Steel, the 50-50 joint venture between China's leading steelmaker HBIS Group (HBIS) and South Korean steel giant POSCO, has officially commissioned the No.1 continuous hot-dip galvanizing (CGL) line for automotive sheet at its new plant in Laoting county in Tangshan, North China's Hebei province, according release from China MCC22 Group Co, the leading Chinese engineering company and prime contractor for the project.
The two companies had announced plans for an automotive steel sheet venture in July 2021 to build and manage two CGLs for automotive sheets in Laoting, with the total capacity reaching 900,000 tonnes/year, as Mysteel Global reported. Construction on the project started in January 2022 and was to have been completed by the end of 2023, POSCO had said at the time.
China MCC22 did reveal the capacity of the first line nor the status of construction on the No.2 CGL at Laoting. However, as part of their agreement, the two firms have incorporated POSCO's existing galvanizing venture in Foshan, Guangdong province in South China, POSCO Guangdong Automotive Steel, into the joint company. That CGL was completed in April 2013 and has a capacity of 450,000 t/y, so the two lines in Tangshan are likely to be of the same capacity.
The No.1 CGL is capable of producing galvannealed steel sheets (GA) with thicknesses of 0.3-2.3 mm, widths of 800-1860 mm, and maximum strengths of 980 MPa, China MCC22 said, saying this reflects the JV plant's aim to provide "low-carbon, green, and lightweight steel" for new energy vehicles and high-end brand cars.
"Our automotive steel with a width of 1860 mm is also the widest GA auto steel in China," Tian Zhiwei, HBIS-POSCO JV's head of technical quality, told local media. Once the second CGL in Tangshan is commissioned, the venture's annual production capacity of autosheets will be 1.35 million t/y.
In early April, the HBIS-POSCO plant successfully produced the first batch of GA auto steel and delivered this to a major auto group for trial, according to the MCC22's release. HBIS's automotive steel has customers in the global automotive brand market, such as BMW, Volkswagen, and General Motors, as well as the Chinese domestic automotive brand market, sources note.
Source:Mysteel Global
