Northern China’s Baotou Iron and Steel Group has commissioned a new pickling line for its major flats investment. The mill has been upgrading its products to overcome declining profits, Kallanish notes.

The 1.2 million tonnes/year line began construction in April 2014 and all equipment was installed just before an annealing line at the same facility was commissioned on 24 December (see Kallanish 30 Dec). It is part of a new 5m t/y flats plant which saw a 2,250mm hot strip mill commissioned in March last year and a cold rolled silicon steel plant in July. The first 21.95 tonnes coil of 2 x 1,245mm material was pickled in the early hours of 31 December, the company says.

Baotou previously operated a 1,780mm hot strip mill producing commercial quality coils. The new plant, however, will focus on higher-end steels including silicon steel and coil with tensile strength up to 780 Mpa. It hopes to supply the automotive, home appliance and locomotive sectors (rails are also an important niche sector for Baotou).

Baotou saw net profits drop 70% year-on-year in the first half of 2014 to Yuan 36.58 million ($6 million). Despite the benefit of falling iron ore prices, the steelmaker has been hit by the weakness of the northern Chinese steel market, especially for commodity steel.