Guangzhou, China-based Guangzhou JFE Steel Sheet, the 50:50 joint venture of Japanese-based JFE Steel and China's Guangzhou Iron & Steel (Guanggang), has announced it will launch the construction of its first cold strip mill on 1 April.
The new mill, expected to have an annual capacity of 1.8 million mt, is scheduled to be commissioned in May 2011.
The construction work is for the second-phase CR project which will provide materials for its first-phase HDG line. The second HDG line, which will be built at a later date, is also expected be commissioned in 2011.
After commissioning, the second-phase of the CR project will supply 410,000 mt of full hard raw materials, around 350,000 mt of commercial HDG, 950,000 mt of commodity grade CR products and 100,000 mt of common full hard coil for the first phase HDG lines.
JFE Steel will continue to supply all CRC feeds to the first HDG line until the cold strip mill starts production.
JFE Steel and Guanggang established Guangzhou JFE Steel Sheet Company Ltd (GJSS) in December 2003 in order to produce hot dip galvanized steel sheets for the automobile and electrical appliances industries of China. The abovementioned construction is in line with the agreement signed in August 2007 between the two companies to build additional production facilities including a 1.8 million ton per annum capacity cold rolling mill, a one million ton per annum capacity continuous annealing line, and 400,000 ton per annum capacity No. 2 continuous galvanizing line, in order to meet expanding demand.