Baoshan building Shanghai plant

Baoshan Iron & Steel Co, China’s largest steel mill, started construction of a $750 million project to make special alloy plates and coils in Shanghai. “This is to meet the growing demand from such industries like aerospace, shipbuilding, nuclear power plants and large-scale oil and gas field exploration, all of which are key sectors according to the government,” the company said in a statement.

The project will make products like titanium, titanium alloys and some special stainless steel products which can be used in these sectors. Some products will also be for the shipbuilding industry as China is poised to overtake Japan and South Korea as the world’s largest shipbuilding nation by 2015, according to some reports.

Construction of the whole project is slated to be completed in May 2009 and annual production is slated at 360,000 tons on estimated sales of $1 billion.