Do you need high quality flat, sectioned, rebar or other long steel products? The Saudi Iron & Steel Co can supply it all from Jubail, and is investing heavily in R&D.
FIRST ONSTREAM IN 1983, Saudi Iron & Steel Co (Hadeed) is Saudi Arabia's first and largest fully -integrated steel producer. It is wholly owned by SABIC and thus the most visible part of the Kingdom's vigorously successful efforts to diversify the economy away from oil and gas - a process that started in the wake of the first energy crisis more than 30 years ago. And as a highly energy-intensive industry employing mostly skilled local labour in Al-Jubail Industrial City it is an ideal vehicle for achieving this, based on government-supported exports to the Arabic-speaking world as the primary objective.
The company's vision is now to be the leading producer and marketer of domestically-produced high-grade steel products - especially flats, sections, rebars for concrete reinforcement and other long bar products, in both the Middle East and North Africa. Its stated core values are employee empowerment, safety first at all timesand the use of state-of-the-art manufacturing processes like bar quenching that are environmentally sound. ISO 9002 certification was achieved in 1994, and has been consistently retained for new product lines since.
"Hadeed's achievements are objects of pride for all employees," writes company president Mutlaq H Al-Morished. "Since its establishment, Hadeed has been making continuous efforts to expand and introduce state-of-the-art technology...committed to quality.
"Aware of the importance of the domestic market Hadeed has been adopting the principle of partnership with its domestic customers. This has already consolidated Hadeed's share in the huge domestic market for steels including coils of all types.
At the heart of the complex which dominates the Industrial City is Hadeed's flat products multi-process facility which came on stream in July 2000 with a design capacity of 800-850,000 tpa (according to grade and product) of hot-, cold-rolled and galvanised products. Adjacent to the Long Product (eg construction rebars and angled sections) complex this produces a wide range of coils, plates, pipes, high-specification materials suitable for pressure vessels and other products for which there is a high demand in the region - and far beyond. The protected galvanised materials are widely used in the local and regional appliance industry, including for the booming white-goods trade. All products fully meet international quality standards and are thus suitable for trading anywhere in the world, subject to specification of course.
The facility incorporates new direct-reduction, electric-arc and ladle furnaces as well as slab recasting and reheating facilities, a hot strip mill and a finishing mill. Space is available to expand the complex to an annual output of two million tons, and plans have already been laid to achieve this in a phased fashion. The flats plant will by then be by far the largest manufacturer of coiled steel products anywhere in the region, rivalled only by the huge and capital-intensive steel industry of India, which has much in common with the complex at Al-Jubail.
The basic DR plant uses the proven HYL 3 process to convert imported iron ore into intermediate sponge iron. The normal annual production output is more than 1.1mn tonnes of 93 per cent metallised sponge iron with a vital (for strength) and acurately controlled carbon content of consistently just 1.8 per cent.
Part fed by scrap, and therefore a major contributor to environmental cleansing throughout the Kingdom and beyond, the highly efficient electric furnace in this ultra-modern steel plant can heat 150 tonnes per input batch, with the ladle furnace and single-strand slab caster located according to best international practice alongside, just as in Germany. The liquid steel produced is then cast into slabs 220mm thick, and the facility has an annual production capacity of more than 0.9mn tonnes of this intermediate product which is itself a valuable trading commodity.
In the hot strip mill nearby production starts in the slab reheat facility. This strip mill is of continuous type and incorporates a reversing roughing stand, a coil box, a five-stand finishing mill, laminar cooling, an efficient down coiler and a final inspection facility through which all strip products must pass for automatic monitoring of quality both within and between batches. The hot-strip finishing facilities include a special line that cuts products accurately to length and a final slitting and recoiling process that prepares the invaluable material for sale.
Other products for less demanding purposes emerge from the cold mill complex, which houses a push pickling line, batch annealing facilities, a high-grade tempering mill and a continuous hot-dip galvanising line. The production process is completed in the cold slitting and recoiling line, just as in the hot strip mill. The final output is a continuous flow of high-grade tempered and cold-rolled/galvanised slit coils, completely ready for fabrication by the final customer and supplied to the gauge, length and width specifications provided.
Flat products plant capacities at Jubail are currently as follows:
Hot strip - 800,000tpa
Hot slit/recoiled products - 260,000tpa
Hot cut-to-length products - 360,000tpa
Push pickling - 456,000tpa
Cold reversing - 360,000tpa
Batch annealing - 150,000tpa
Tempering - 411,000tpa
Galvanising - 20,000tpa
Cold slitting/recoiling - 186,000tpa.
Hadeed's hot rolled flat products satisfy all international standards requirements and consist of plates of 5-16mm gauge, available up to 1600mm wide (max length 12m). Slightly wider coils can be produced to a much longer length with a gross weight of up to 3 tonnes per coil - ideal material for a continuous metal fabrication process. Just-in-time delivery schedules can be arranged to facilitate this; this is far more difficult for overseas suppliers to achieve because of the length and complexity of the delivery 'pipeline'.
Saudi Iron & Steel's cold rolled products include many structural grades that fully satisfy the requirements of very demanding fabricators and other users in the construction, appliance and other industries (in terms of product strength, ductility and weldability. New products are now being developed to support the rapid diversification of downstream industries throughout the Kingdom, which could not be achieved if this major materials supplier was not available within its borders. Cold rolled coils are now available in gauges up to 3.0mm, with a per-coil weight limit of 30 tonnes. Galvanised coils are available up to 2.0mm in gauge, with a per-coil limit of 28 tonnes. Many customers in the air conditioning, refrigeration, coating, panel and appliance industries choose to use these high-quality galvanised materials from such a reliable domestic source on a regular basis.
Current areas of research by Hadeed's scientists and technicians include studies on the reductibility of different DR materials, energy conservation issues, free nitrogen control, and general quality enhancement of all the company's flat, sectioned and long products.
Hadeed's steel products including high-grade rebars for concrete reinforcement are widely used throughout the Arabic-speaking countries, with a special concentration of customers in Saudi itself, in the UAE and in Kuwait. The company introduced the new bar quenching process to its rebar rolling mill at Jubail - this produces a stronger, more weldable and corrosion-resistant product increasingly specified by construction engineers around the globe, especially where concrete beams, columns and other pre-formed products are liable to water penetration. Many new mosques in the region in particular have been built to incorporate these various steels ay different stages of the construction process. The SABIC member company has just won a prestigious order from M/S Cicon on behalf of managing contractors M/S Alnaboodh for earthworks and piling materials for the major expansion project at Dubai International Airport. The total demand there will be for 140,000 tonnes of rebars in all.
Other major construction projects in which Hadeed steel has been specified as the first choice include the nearby Al-Jumairah Beach Hotel, the Emirates Towers and the trend-setting Al-Faisaliyah Tower and Kingdom Centre in downtown Riyadh.
If it is high-grade constructional or fabricating steel that you want then contacting Hadeed at PO Box 10053, Madinat Al-Jubail, Al-Sinaiyah 31961 is undoubtedly the way to get the local answer.
For more information visit www.hadeed.com.sa
© Technical Review Middle East 2004
