Is Chromium the new Boron in China?
As we were informed by one of our Chinese Steel mill friends, some
mills are attempting to add Chromium to their steel so they can call
carbon steels “alloy” and qualify for export rebates.
The funny thing is, customers are wary of wire rod with Cr added.
Why? Well, I’m no metallurgist, but I do know Cr is considered a “tramp
element” in carbon grades of wire rod.
If the producer uses an electric arc furnace and melts scrap,
Chromium (Cr) will be higher than a mill that uses either BOF
steelmaking or DRI.
Any Cr in the melted scrap will remain in the steel, whereas in BOF
or DRI based steelmaking, you have clean steel without Cr, unless added
to make a specific grade of steel. Customers making fine wire or severe
bending or making fasteners many times put a limit on the acceptable Cr
level as it makes the steel more brittle or less ductile in their
applications.
Could Cr be okay for rebar? Yes, this application is much less critical.
But already some news sources are reporting reluctance to buy Cr added grades.
One mill offered Cr-added rod at $380/mt FOB, but customers did not
want to take the risk because of quality concerns. Other mills are
offering Boron added wire rod for about $410
Most Chinese mills are BOF, so in order to create these grades, they will need to add Cr to the molten steel.
Customers so far are reluctant to try this.
Stay tuned for the rest of the story!
Get more information at:
NAM KIM STEEL GROUP MANUFACTURER
Tel: +84650 37 9999 2 (Mr. Joshua)
Mobile/Viber/Whatsapp: +84 169.949.3.696
Skype: thaiphikhanh_bily
Email: khanhtp@namkimgroup.vn
Webiste: www.namkimgroup.vn
US Steel Mills file dumping suit against Cold Rolled importers from 8 countries
US producers of cold-rolled sheet steel filed unfair trade cases
today against imports from eight countries alleging dumping margins as
high as 320% and making illegal subsidy allegations as well.
The cited countries and their alleged dumping margins are as follows:
Brazil (50-60%), China (266%), India (42%), Japan (83%), South Korea
(93-176%), Netherlands (47-136%), Russia (69-320%), and the UK (48-84%).
Countervailing duty petitions against alleged subsidies were filed against Brazil, China, India, South Korea and Russia.
While announcing the trade action against cold-rolled coils, AK Steel
said US CRC producers “have been facing a surge of what we believe are
unfairly dumped and subsidized imports.”
AK was joined in the filing by ArcelorMittal USA, Nucor, Steel Dynamics and US Steel.
Imports of CRC from the eight countries targeted by this case
increased by 120% between 2012 and 2014, from 798,000 tons to 1.75
million st.
In January-May this year these imports totaled 790,361 st, up from
548,835 st in the same period last year, according to AK’s release.
Get more information at:
NAM KIM STEEL GROUP MANUFACTURER
Tel: +84650 37 9999 2 (Mr. Joshua)
Mobile/Viber/Whatsapp: +84 169.949.3.696
Skype: thaiphikhanh_bily
Email: khanhtp@namkimgroup.vn
Webiste: www.namkimgroup.vn
