SteelOrbis Shanghai
Jiangsu Province-based Nanjing Iron & Steel United Co. has announced that so far this year it has produced and sold 5,000 mt of super-long shipbuilding plate of 20-meter lengths.
Due to the increasing sizes of ship vessels, shipbuilding steel subsection lengths have risen from 15 to 20 meters. However, restricted by transportation conditions and cooling bed sizes, most Chinese mills are only able to produce shipbuilding plate of 12 meters in length, while only one or two large producers are capable of producing 20-meter long shipbuilding plates. Some shipbuilders resort to welding together 10-meter long plates but this has the effect of considerably increasing both purchasing and production costs.