At the 5th SteelOrbis Turkish Steel Market Conference held in Istanbul on November 26, Koray Günay from Turkish steelmaker Çolakoğlu Metalürji gave a presentation in which he discussed Turkey's steel production structure as well as Çolakoğlu's investments, production capabilities and production policy.
Mr. Günay underlined the imbalance between Turkey's flat steel production and consumption, and also the imbalance between the country's long steel output and usage. Mr. Günay showed that Turkey's domestic production in long products, which stood at 20.71 million mt in 2009 was around 114 percent more than its consumption (9.69 million mt in the same year), whereas domestic production of flat products (4.41 million mt in 2009) was around 65 percent of local demand for flat products (6.83 million mt in 2009).
In this regard, as Mr. Günay told the conference attendees, Çolakoğlu Metalurji decided to invest in flat steel production, and thus in 2007 it commissioned its electric arc furnace meltshop. With its crude steel production capacity reaching up to three million mt, Çolakoğlu then set up two continuous casters, first one for steel billet production with an annual capacity of 2.5 million mt, and then a second one for slab production with a capacity of 3.5 million mt per year, reaching a total semi-finished steel production capacity of six million metric tons, versus its crude steel capacity of three million mt, which gives the company the flexibility to switch between billet and slab production depending on market trends, Mr. Günay explained.
In June 2010, Çolakoğlu Metalürji commissioned its hot rolled coil (HRC) rolling mill, with an annual production capacity of three million mt, which may be expanded to 4.5 million metric tons with further investment.
Günay said that Çolakoğlu Metalürji, with just 4.5 months' experience in flat steel production, has already surpassed its targets as regards steel grades produced and also hot rolled coil output, which is expected to reach 500,000 metric tons by the end of this year, compared with its original target of 300,000 metric tons, thus constituting a monthly production volume of around 100,000 metric tons. Günay also explained that, as of November 2010, Çolakoğlu Metalürji had delivered more than 300,000 mt of HRC to the domestic and international markets, for pipe producers, cold rolling mills, service centers and stockists.
Aiming to enhance its product mix within the HRC segment, Çolakoğlu Metalurji plans to produce new qualities including plain carbon structure steels, medium carbon alloy steels, unalloyed steels suitable for cold rolling, pressure vessel steels, ship plate structural steels and pipeline steels in 2010 and 2011, as well as HSLA structural steels, ultra-low carbon steels and dual phase steels in 2011 and in 2012.