304/304L austenitic stainless steel, the widest and thickest stainless steel plate in China, was successfully rolled in batches

Recently, KD has given full play to the synergies and purchased wide slabs, and successfully rolled the widest and thickest stainless steel plate with a specification of 12.9*3796*12010 mm in batches for the first time, ending the “bottleneck” of long-term dependence on imports for LNG main pipeline plates.

According to estimates, based on the current annual consumption of 10,000 tons of wide slabs for main pipelines of liquefied natural gas (LNG), the annual demand will increase at a rate of 15% in the future. With the massive import of overseas LNG resources, the demand for 304/304L austenitic stainless steel as the main material of the pipeline will also increase significantly.

There are two key technical requirements for 304/304L austenitic stainless steel for LNG pipeline transportation:

1. The toughness of the material that can withstand changes from room temperature to ultra-low temperature;

2. With the improvement of transmission efficiency requirements, the diameter of steel pipes is getting larger and larger, requiring stainless steel plates. Wider and wider, the maximum width exceeds 4000 mm.

Aiming at the requirements of materials resistant to normal temperature and ultra-low temperature, Academia Sinica has optimized the composition and process of conventional 304/304L, so that LNG steel can maintain good performance in extreme environments. In response to the demand for material width, the production, sales and research team actively coordinated and purchased slabs with a width of 1800mm from Taiyuan Iron and Steel. The thick plate technical team adopts special online solution rolling technology to make the corrosion resistance and mechanical properties after rolling meet customer requirements. Users appreciate that KD can provide them with 3796 mm wide LNG material instead of imported material, and weld steel plates to make pipes on its production line.