OREANDA-NEWS. April 04, 2012. Baosteel Co.,Ltd. Heavy Plate Unit successfully achieves the mass production of ultra thick high strength marine platform rack steel and gains the Classification Society certification.A total of over 980 tons of products have been sent to customers, which indicates that Baosteel has ultra thick high strength marine platform rack steel mass and stable supply capacity, reported the press-centre of Baosteel.

Ultra thick high strength marine platform rack steel is the highest end product of the marine industry and has particularly stringent requirements on steel plate full-thickness strength, toughness, corrosion resistance and flatness. Only a few international iron and steel enterprises have mass production capabilities. Over the years, China has been dependent on imports of such products.

This customer's products are mainly land and sea oil equipment. The products are exported to more than 10 countries: the United States, Azerbaijan and Pakistan. At the end of May last year, after learning that the customer was doing 300 ft jack-up offshore drilling platform design and material procurement, Baosteel heavy plate production, marketing and research team began multi-direction research.

Baosteel Heavy Plate 5-meter line is the first set of modern super wide heavy plate mill in China. Since it is putting into production in 2005, the products are sold at home and abroad, and are widely used in major projects such as Three Gorges Power Station project. Baosteel 5-meter line existing equipment's tempered product designed max thickness is 100 mm, while ultra thick high strength marine platform rack steel thickness is sometimes above 150 mm. To this end, Heavy Plate Department first carried out the five meter production line research to break through the existing production capacity and make preparations for rolling new products.

By then, informed of the customer's situation, production, marketing and research team interact actively with the customer, by early intervention, described in detail Baosteel rack steel product R & D, certification progress, supplier performance and product services, etc., and according to customer's actual situation, gave customer a lot of selection recommendations and systematically promoted the ultra thick high strength marine platform rack steel mass supply. Ultimately, Baosteel wins the bid among a number of steel mills and obtains the ultra thick rack steel marine platform exclusive supply qualification, i.e. a total of 980 tons.

According to the forecast of the relevant agencies, in our country, along with the offshore oil and gas investment and development, it is expected that over the next five years marine engineering equipment market size every year will be over 50 billion U.S. Dollars. However, in China, the steel used in high-end marine engineering equipment manufacturing, especially product development design and core critical equipment still cannot fully meet the demand. At present, about 70 percent of marine engineering matching equipment has to be imported in our country every year. High-end marine engineering product R & D and mass production not only bring considerable profits to the iron and steel enterprises, but also has great significance for China's energy security. In the next phase, under the user oriented operating mechanism, Baosteel heavy plate production, marketing and research team will speed up marine engineering steel product development, system certification and marketing to better meet user needs.