ArcelorMittal, Chinese companies plan to make automotive grade steel

By Tom Stundza -- Purchasing, 7/17/2008 Global steel giant ArcelorMittal and its Chinese partners—Hunan Valin Group and Hunan Valin Steel—plan to establish an automotive steel joint venture with capacity of around 1.2 million metric tons/year. Products will include cold-rolled steel, galvanized and galvannealed steel from a plant in Hunan province. The facility will be adjacent to Hunan Steel's subsidiary Lianyuan Steel, which will supply the joint venture with hot-rolled sheet in coil. Lakshmi Mittal, chairman of ArcelorMittal, reports that the Luxembourg-based steelmaker has been working with Hunan Valin Steel for three years to develop the joint venture. He adds in a statement that the automotive joint venture is part of the firm's global strategy to produce high value-added products. “Hunan Valin's long-term development... [read full story]