Jiangsu Shagang Group Huaigang Special Steel Co. Ltd is located in southwest industrial area of Huaian, which is the hometown of beloved former premier Zhou Enlai, and covers an area of 3,150,000 square meters (4500 Mu). It crosses the Beijin-Hangzhou Grand Canal, and is close to Jinhu, Tongsan, Ninglian Highway and Xinchang Railway and the transportation is very convenient. The companys predecessor ??Qingjiang Iron & Steel Factory was established in October 1970 with 1,000,000 RMB investment from municipal government of Qingjiang City. The company changed its name toHuaiying Metallurgical Industry Company in April 1986 and in December 1996 the company was restructured as Jiangsu Huaigang Group Co. Ltd., based on which a provincial-level enterprise group ??Jiangsu Huaigang Group was formed.
In the second half of 2002 the company carried out the measurements of deepening enterprise reform and expanding capital and share to absorb natural persons like social legal person, operation and management staff to become shareholders. The registered capital of the new company is 620 million RMB, among which social corporate shares account for 64.4%, state-owned shares account for 26.15% and natural person shares from operation and management staff account for 9.45%.
During June to November 2006, Jiangsu Shagang Group acquired social corporate shares of Huaigang, and state-owned shares was assigned to Jiangyin Wande Trading Co. Ltd. Subsequently, the company carried out ownership structure integration, and the present ownership structure is as following: Shagang Group holds 64.4%, Jiangyin Wande holds 15.6% and natural persons from operation and management staff hold 20%. On December 18, 2006, Jiangsu Shagang Group Huaigang Special Steel Co. Ltd was officially established.
The companys existing total assets are 10.181 Billion RMB at present. It has 6,000 employees, and 2,500 of them are different types of specialized technical personnel. Huaigang was ranked No. 46 in top 50 metallurgical enterprises of China and No. 257 in countrys largest industrial enterprises in 2005, and hence was listed as one of the four key iron and steel enterprises to develop in Jiangsu during 11th Five-Year Plan period by the provincial government. In 2007 the company produced steel 2,028,400 tons, increasing by 25.75%; steel products 1,854,400 tons, increasing by 13.53%; iron 1,876,100 tons, increasing by 58.05%; achieved sales income 10.251 billion RMB, increasing by 20.29%; profits and taxes 1.137 billion RMB, increasing by 87.98% and 707 million RMB of them are profits, which is increased by 104.19%. In 2008 Huaigang is expected to achieve sale income of 15 billion RMB. Huaigang was ranked No. 291 in Chinas top 500 manufacturing companies. The company was awarded honorary titles of “national advanced spiritual civilization construction work units, National May 1 Labor Certificates for several times.
At present, Huaigang has: an internationally advanced level 70 tons Ultra-High-Power EAF ??Refinery Furnace ??Continuous Caster ??Hot Delivery / Hot Charging ??Continuous Rolling “four in one??compact small and medium sized quality steel bars and profiles production line imported from Italy, and a domestically advanced level 100 ton BOF ??LF Ladle Furnace ??RH Vacuum Degassing Furnace ??Continuous Caster ??corollary one small and one medium sized bars and profiles continuous rolling production lines; a large round bloom production line imported from Italy which can produce 380 ??500mm diameter round blooms, and corollary special steel bars production line with diameter range from 90 to 259mm. Annual output is 3 million tons of quality and special steel and steel products including spring steel, bearing steel, marine anchor chain steel, alloy tube blank, automobile steel and etc.
During development, Huaigang persists in relying on self-accumulation, rolling development, and adheres to scientific and technology innovation and strives for the first class to create a new platform for sustainable development in market competition, and has a certain degree of development advantages:
1. Technology and Equipment Advantages
Huaigang has always been tracking forefronts of global iron and steel production technology, actively adopting advanced technologies, processes and equipments; Huaigang is the first company in the country to adopt the new four-in-one compact and energy-saving process of UHP EAF ??Refinery Furnace ??Continuous Caster ??Hot Delivery / Hot Charging –Continuous Rolling; rolling mill production lines adopt a series of advanced technologies, processes and equipments such as one heat rolling, regenerative heating furnace and etc.
The BOF zero slag tapping process adopted by the companys Blast Furnace ??BOF ??LF Ladle Furnace ??RH Vacuum Degassing Furnace ??Continuous Caster ??corollary small and medium sized bars and profiles continuous rolling long process production line was awarded national utility model patent, and eliminates obstacles for Chinas BOF special steel production. Compared with existing domestic special steel companies, the purity of Huaigangs molten steel is better, which creates condition for producing high quality special steels. With the cooperation of Huaigang, Central Iron & Steel Research Institute and Capital Steel Designing Institute, Russian Kalugin Hot Air Stove technology was introduced for the blast furnaces on this production line. Because of the application of this technology, the corollary hot air stove volume and number for the same type of blast furnaces was decreased by 1/3 respectively, and the investment was saved by 30%. What is more, gas combustion is more full, and thermal efficiency and air temperature is higher. After application of this technology, the air temperature of the blast furnaces reached the highest air temperature for the same type of blast furnaces in the country within the same year.
2. Brand Advantage
The development process of Huaigang is actually the process of product quality upgrading and improving. After years of unremitting efforts, products of Huaigang have formed the brand advantage. The main products are special steel like spring steel, bearing steel, marine anchor chain steel, alloy tube blank, automobile steel and etc., and these account for 90% of overall capacity.
Products produced by Huaigang are mainly used in automobile manufacturing, railways, locomotives, ship building and machinery manufacturing. Huaigang products are well sold both inside and outside Jiangsu Province, part of products covers national market, and some products are also well sold both in domestic and foreign market and used on products of famous international brands. Spring fastener bars for railway speed increasing and 16Mn wing panel for automobile modification developed by Huaigang account for 80% of domestic market share, and are exported to Japan, Southeast Asia, Europe, America and etc. Cooperating with the well-known Cascade Company, the companys flat steel for forklift is sold throughout the world; the largest spring manufacturing company in North America - Si Tande imports 100,000 tons of spring flat steel from Huaigang annually for heavy duty truck and military products manufacturing. Huaigang, together with German famous automobile steel pipe supplier ??Hoerbiger, developed American standard alloy tube blank with annual output of 10,000 tons, and they are used to produce steel pipes on luxury vehicles like Mercedes-Benz, BMW and so on. Annual output of companys steel ball steel is 50,000 tons, ranked No. 1 in Asia, and accounts for 90% of domestic market. Automobile steels produced by Huaigang have successfully cooperated with major domestic automobile manufacturers like the 2nd Automobile Works, SAIC, Nanjing Automobile Works, FAW and etc.
Marine anchor chain steel manufactured by Huaigang obtained recognitions as marine steel manufacturer from Lloyds Register, Det Norske Veritas, Nippon Kaiji Kyokai, American Bureau of Shipping, and China Classification Society. Huaigang Brand level III rebars are state-designated quality inspection-exempted products. Spring steel product is awarded the title of Provincial Quality Trustworthy Product. Seven kinds of products such as hot rolled ribbed bars, alloy structure steel rods, spring rounds (flats), marine anchor chain steel rods, flat steels for automobile frame, seamless blooms for boiler and etc. are accredited the certificate of Metallurgical Products Physical Quality cognizance, and continued to maintain state Gold Cup Award title for metallurgical products physical quality. Series of Huaigang brand products have continuously maintained honorary title of Famous Brand Products in Jiangsu Province for many years. Huaigang brand has become a famous brand of Jiangsu now.
3. Own Intellectual Property Rights Advantages
Huaigang continuously engages in independent scientific and technological innovations. To solve the problem of oxygen shortage for steelmaking, Huaigang became the first metallurgical company in China to cooperate with Praxair America on the technical research of Application of Low Purity Oxygen in Ultra High Power Electric Arc Furnace, resulting in annual energy saving of 12,000,000 kWh and achieving comprehensive economic benefits of more than 10 million RMB. Hot metal charging in EAF process and application of low purity oxygen and post combustion technology on EAF first introduced by Huaigang were awarded the first prize of Jiangsu provincial scientific and technological advancement award, second prize of national scientific and technological advancement award, and won national invention patent. These technologies have been widely popularized in Chinas metallurgical industry.
Huaigang continues to strengthen R & D capabilities, and there is a strong R & D team and institution. Approved by the State Ministry of Personnel, Huaigang became the national post-doctoral scientific research workstation. With approved from Jiangsu Department of Personnel and Economic & Trade Commission, Huaigang is the first company to set up Post-doctoral Technological Innovation Center among metallurgical companies in Jiangsu, and together with Central Iron & Steel Research Institute Huaigang Past-doctorial workstation was established. At the mean time, Huaigang works closely with Northeastern University and Jiangsu University so that Huaigang become a teaching and scientific researching base for them, which has laid a solid foundation to continuously promoting companys technological innovations.
Huaigang took two sub-projects called Technology Development for Complete Equiaxed Crystal and Super-fine Crystal Carbon Rebars with strength of 400 MPa under New Generation of Super Steel Materials from Chinas 973 important basic research projects. Huaigang made breakthrough progresses, which reached the advanced level for similar researches in USA, Germany and etc.
Huaigang continuously expands researches and developments of high value-added products. The production process of barium-containing crystallization steel and barium micro-alloying bearing steel were given state invention patents.
4. Recycling, Energy Saving and Consumption Reduction Advantages
To promote energy saving and emission reduction, and achieve cost lowering and efficiency improving, Huaigang is committed to reform traditional growth pattern of “mass production, mass consumption, mass emission, mass pollution?? actively develop recycling economy and has achieved high efficient utilization of resources and energy.
Wastes are utilized and changed into valuables. Huaigang uses sintering as an important process to recycle iron bearing solid metallurgical wastes. Precipitator dusts from EAF, BOF, Blast Furnaces and Sintering Machine, oxide scales from rolling, BOF and EAF slag with iron content up to some certain percentage are all reclaimed for sintering production, by which dust pollution is reduced, and also iron bearing solid metallurgical wastes are effectively utilized.
International advanced harmless processing method was adopted for blast furnace slag. Ultra fine slag powder produced from blast furnace slag was directly mixed into cement. The mixing ratio is up to 40% and concrete strength is increased by 30%. Consequently, consumption of mineral resources for cement production and emission of harmful gases are reduced and production cost of construction industry is lowered.
Tailings separated magnetically from BOF and EAF slag are used for sidewalk encaustic brick manufacturing, machine-made bricks for construction, construction backfill and so on, resulting in zero emissions of solid wastes.
Recycling of secondary energies. Currently BOF gas, blast furnace gas and coke oven gas can be fully recycled at Huaigang. BOF gas and steam recovered reached 110 m3, 80 kg per ton steel respectively, and steelmaking with minus energy consumption has been achieved.
Recycling of blast furnace gas, coke oven gas and BOF gas. 36,000 tons of coal are saved annually by substituting coal for gas, using coke oven gas for pellets producing, closing the coal gas generator of pellet plant. BOF gas is also used for lime production. At present, BOF gas recovered at Huaigang can not only meet the demand of two sleeve lime kilns which produce more than 800 tons of lime daily, but also some of the remaining BOF gas goes back to BOF workshop for ladle heating. Substituting oil for gas, rolling plants utilize low calorific blast furnace gas for billet heating in stead of heavy oil and have achieved oil free reheating in rolling plants, thus save about 100,000 tons of heavy oil consumption. By heating ladles and tundishes with coke oven gas in both BOF and EAF meltshop, the company saves more than 6500 tons of diesel annually.
Recycling of stream. Steam recovered from BOF is used for the heating of operation rooms, lounges and offices during winter time, replacing electric heating and air conditioning, thus 2.6 million kWh of electricity are saved annually. In May 2008, during the major overhaul of EAF, Huaigang carried out energy saving retrofit of EAF dedusting system - EAF residual heat recovery using heat pipe technology. Through this retrofit, 17 tons of steam are recovered hourly, resulting in more than 10,000 tons of standard coal saving annually. Thus EAF dedusting with minus energy consumption was realized.
Recycling of coking byproducts. All byproducts during coke making are recycled. Coke tars are used in Rolling Plant No.1 to make up for the lack of coke oven gas. Benzene, naphthalene, and thiamine are recovered as production raw materials for chemical enterprises. Coking fumes are desulfurized to reduce air pollution and promote cleaner production of the company.
Orderly recirculating of water and adopting dry process instead of wet process. Huaigang has always carried out the water utilization program of classified supply and resuing, staged treatment??combined with “orderly recirculating utilization.
Huaigangs comprehensive energy consumption per ton steel continued to maintain top 10 among key metallurgical enterprises in the country and ranks top 5 among similar companies. Recirculating rate of water is above 97% and fresh water consumption per ton steel is less than 3.6 tons, which maintain national advanced level in metallurgical industry.
In the last three years of the 11th Five Year Plan, Huaigang will focus on the expansion of industrial chain backed by 3 million tons of special steel. Huaigangs goal is to realize 30 billion RMB sales revenue at the early stage of the 12th Five Year Plan while strive to reach 50 Billion RMB, and become China’s modern large-scale special steel company.
