Ansteel to form steel wheel JV with Thyssenkrupp, Jingu

Ansteel, a major Chinese steelmaker in Anshan city, Liaoning province, Northeast China, is establishing a joint venture with German steelmaker Thyssenkrupp and Chinese steel wheel manufacturer Zhejiang Jingu, an announcement from Jingu showed on Thursday and Ansteel officials confirmed on Friday.

The new joint venture, once incorporated, will focus on the research, manufacture, sale and after-sale service of steel wheels, drawing on Thyssenkrupp’s advantage on auto parts technology, Jingu’s strength of making high-strength and light weight steel wheels, and Ansteel’s supply of advanced automotive steel, Jingu said in its statement. Feeds for the venture will mainly be carbon steel hot rolled coils, according to an Ansteel official.

Ansteel itself did not publish an announcement on the new joint venture as the investment is relatively small, the Ansteel official said.

The registered capital of the JV will be Yuan 10 million ($1.5 million). Ansteel will contribute Yuan 1.5 million and thus take up 15% share. Jingu and Thyssenkrupp, contributing Yuan 5.1 million and Yuan 3.4 million respectively, will hold 51% and 34% in the planned joint venture, Jingu’s announcement said.

Based in Fuyang city, Zhejiang province, East China, Jingu is China’s largest steel wheel manufacturer. It runs seven wheel-manufacturing bases and a tyre and wheel assembly facility in Zhejiang and Shandong provinces in East China and in Sichuan province in Southwest China. It also has a facility in Thailand, the company’s website said.

Ansteel is China’s second largest automotive steel production base and is also a long-term automotive steel supplier to Jingu, another official from Ansteel’s automotive steel sales department told Mysteel.

In 2017, Ansteel sold a total of 1.47 million tonnes of automotive steel, up 17% on year and the highest on record. The increase rate was much higher than the 3% growth in production of vehicles achieved by China’s automotive industry generally last year, according to Ansteel’s annual report.

Back in 2002, Ansteel founded a 50:50 joint venture with Thyssenkrupp – TKAS Auto Steel Company (TAGAL) – in Dalian city, also in Liaoning province, mainly producing hot-dipped galvanized products for automotive industry, Mysteel noted. But the Ansteel’s official said the planned joint venture will have little to do with TAGAL.

Written by Olivia Zhang, zhangwd@mysteel.com
Edited by Russ McCulloch, russ.mcculloch@mysteel.com