South African service centre Trident builds new plants

South African service centre Trident builds new plants

The South African Trident Steel, the steel division of construction company Aveng, is taking further steps for expansion, aiming to become a major supplier of steel parts for the South African auto industry. Trident Steel with this ambition will start building a new steel processing plant in a couple of weeks at Saldanha Bay on South Africa's west coast, close to Saldanha Steel and Duferco. The processing plant which is scheduled to complete by the end of 2003, will use about 30'000 tons of steel a year from Iscor's Saldanha Steel and from the Duferco steel plant to produce blanks. As per the company's announcement, the bulk of production will be exported, initially to African countries. The service centre to be constructed at a cost of Rand 65 million, will produce rectangular steel blanks, that are used in making side panels, engine covers and doors for cars. The company officials state that, they already supply 40% of the shaped blanks to the South African auto manufacturing industry and are aiming to expand and lift this share up to 75%. According to information provided by Aveng officials, Trident is also constructing a new press feed line in Johannesburg to produce shaped blanks for South African vehicle manufacturers. Trident is currently the only supplier of these blanks in South Africa, and the company uses an old plant in Pretoria, which is unreliable and has a low capacity. The new plant, being built at a cost of Rand 105million, will increase Trident's capacity to produce shaped blanks fourfold.