Chairman Kwon Oh-joon of POSCO is confident that the steel world will not end, but evolve in the days ahead to make its future bright.
At a meeting with a local media, the chairman and CEO of the steel maker on the occasion of the POSCO winning the Innovation Award for the second time, said the steel industry will continue to have a greater impact on the human community evolving continuously. The World Iron and Steel Association presented the award to POSCO.
For example, he said the steel industry may be able to produce transparent steel plates in the near future and steel products with changing colors depending on the sun beam like the feathers of butterflies.
He said if A-fillers are made with see-through steel plates, the drivers will have no trouble looking at what’s ahead because there are no steel frames between the front glass and the front-seat windows so that the drivers can drive more safely.
The chairman also said a car made with the steel plates that changes the colors according to the angles of the sun beam can see its colors changing, too.
Kwon said up until now, the steel makers competed on the production costs of steel products, but they will compete on the production of lighter steel products than can be easily handled in the future.
On the ways to solve POSCO’s problems, the chairman said the realization of POSCO with advanced steelmaking technologies is the answer to solving the problems. He stressed POSCO should have the steelmaking technologies that no rival steelmakers can copy and continue to keep the gap with other steelmakers with a technology wall keep them away.
He said steel products have been protecting mankind and earth from radiation generated by the solar winds and supply oxygen in human body so that man can continue to live so that man cannot do without those steel and iron products.
The chairman was scheduled to give a lecture entitled, “Iron, Our Eternal Legacy,” at the World Knowledge Forum on Nov. 20 to be held at Shilla Hotel in Seoul.
POSCO which has been focused on its Finex steel making technology without using the traditional furnaces, to turn out the steel plates for automobile, which has grown to take up around 20 percent of the steel maker’s total annual steel output. However, in terms of profit, those steel plates share around half of total profit of the steel maker which is in tune with the general trend of the steel makers around the world. POSCO supplies its steel plates to 15 top automakers around the world, which comes to over 10 percent of total steel plates for automobiles produced in the world.
The list of the global automakers that get POSCO steel plates include Hyundai Motor, Kia Motors, Korea GM, Ssangyong Motor, and Renault Samsung, all car makers based in Korea and a batch of foreign automakers such as GM, Ford, Mercedes Bentz, Audi, Honda, Nissan, Porsche, BMW, Volkswagen, Toyota and Fiat, among others.
Last year, POSCO turned out 850 million tons of steel plates for autos, compared to 538 million tons in 2009, rising 1.6 times. POSCO expand its supplies to major automakers abroad with Hyundai Steel taking up around half of the steel plates needed by its affiliate automakers Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors. POSCO has been leading the technologies for the production of high tension steel plates which is a new material with five times greater hardness than the ordinary steel plates. The steel plates are environment friendly as they reduce the weight of a car built with those steel plates and also protect the passengers during the collision with other cars with the steel plates hardness. POSCO also developed the technology to produce the twining induced plasticity(TWIP) steel plates made by mixing manganese and aluminum with steel which is from 3 to 4 times harder than ordinary steel plates and about 30 percent lighter in weight. POSCO won the Innovation Award for the new technology it developed.
_포스코 혁신상.jpg)
