Speaking at the 6th SteelOrbis Turkish Steel Market Conference, held in Istanbul on November 18 with the sponsorship of Turkish integrated steelmaker Erdemir, Mehmet Aydin, project coordinator of Kibar Holding, stated in his presentation that, although Turkey's annual carbon steel output has reached 29.1 million mt, with the share of flat steel production of the total output also increasing, improvement also needs to be made in production in the country's stainless flat steel sector, which possesses great potential.
Recalling that world stainless steel production is expected to reach 34 million metric tons in 2011, Mr. Aydın said that Turkey still does not have an integrated stainless steel production facility, despite its annual stainless steel consumption of over 300,000 mt, which compares to 100,000 mt in 2000.
According to figures presented by Mehmet Aydin, annual stainless steel consumption per capita in Turkey is at 4.2 kg, compared to 17 kg in Japan, 21 kg in Germany, 25 kg in S. Korea, 30 kg in Italy and 45 kg in Taiwan. Thus, said Mr. Aydin, Turkey's stainless steel production per capita should reach about 18 kg in order to attain the level of a developed country.
Last year, Turkey's stainless steel imports reached 327,000 mt, of which 93 percent consisted of cold rolled stainless flat products. Meanwhile, the country's stainless steel consumption is expected to reach 425,000 mt by 2013.
Considering this vast potential, said Mr. Aydin, Kibar Holding and South Korean companies POSCO and Daewoo International started work on their new cold rolled stainless flat steel rolling facility project in January this year. In the first phase of the facility, input material, i.e., pickled hot rolled coils, will be imported. With an investment of $350 million, the project is planned to begin commercial production by May 2013.
In the first phase, the plant's cold rolled stainless steel output will be 200,000 mt, of which 120,000 mt is projected to be sold domestically and the remainder in the export markets.