Vietnam’s first steel plates rolled out

The first made-in-Vietnam steel plates were rolled out on June 2 by the Cai Lan steel plate hot rolling plant under the Vietnam Shipbuilding Industry Group (Vinashin).

According to the Chairman of Vinashin’s administration board, Pham Thanh Binh, steel plates make up 20-25 percent of a ship’s total production cost. Previously, Vinashin had to import steel plates from China, Japan and the Republic of Korea. Using locally-made steel plates in shipbuilding, the Group will reduce production costs by US$100-150 per tonne.

Each year, Vinashin uses around one million tonnes of steel plates building ships. Therefore, about US$1000 million can be saved by using domestically-produced steel plates. This will also help the Group to shorten ship-building time.

The Cai Lan steel plate hot rolling plant is the largest of its kind in Southeast Asia, with a total investment of VND2.9 trillion funded by Vinashin. The plant is capable of producing about 1 million tonnes of steel products every year.

Tags: Cai Lan steel, Vietnam steel industry, Vietnam steel plates

Posted by VBN on Jun 2 2010. Filed under Steel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry