NatSteel Asia produces most of the billets it consumes in-house with continuous casting technology. Only a small proportion of billets (special grades) are purchased from international steel manufacturers. In-house production of billets provides flexibility in terms of material properties and production yield optimisation.

NatSteel Asia's steel factory produces steel from scrap and does not use blast furnaces.

Molten steel solidifies when it contacts the water-cooled mould to form an external shell of sufficient strength that will hold the remaining molten steel in its core. A spray of water assists the extraction of heat from this partially solidified steel strand.

At the bottom of the steel caster, the steel strand is torch-cut into required lengths. Continuous casters can be used for producing slabs, blooms and billets, and are usually able to cast a few strands of steel simultaneously.

NatSteel Asia uses a five-strand continuous caster that produces billets with cross-sectional areas of up 164mm².

Cutting and bending can be done on the construction site itself or at a cut-and-bend shop. The former often results in inappropriate dimensioning and inaccurate bending. The latter provides a controlled and organised environment where skilled operators produce consistently good quality products.

With prefabricated cut-and-bend rebars, construction sites reduce material wastage and fixing time significantly.

NatSteel Asia is considered a pioneer of cut-and-bend services for Singapore's construction industry and operates one of the world's largest single cut-and-bend facility.

Electricity can be applied either as direct current (DC), where only one electrode is required, or alternate current (AC), where three electrodes are required. These two types of furnaces are respectively known as DC furnace and AC furnace.

Our factory operates a DC Finger Shaft Furnace with an 80-tonne capacity per heat.

The reinforcement bars and wire rods produced at NatSteel Asia are available in various grades for different applications.

At NatSteel Asia, pig iron is sometimes used as an alternative iron source to produce special grade steel which otherwise cannot be made from steel scrap which contains a higher proportion of impurities.

If a radioactive material is melted in the electric arc furnance, Co-60 is the most likely radioactive element to be alloyed with the steel due to its close melting point, while Cs-137 ends up in the dust and Ra-226 in the slag.

NatSteel Asia screens all incoming scrap via a radiation detection system before it is charged into the furnace. Steel samples from the furnace, billets and our steel products are also tested at the lab with a radiation measurement unit. NatSteel Asia adopts a stringent limit of 0.1Bq/g (the International Atomic Energy Agency recommends 0.3Bq/g) of total radioactivity in all of its products.

The distinction between cold- and hot-rolling is the temperature at which rolling is carried out. Cold-rolling often takes place at room temperature while the hot rolling temperature range varies from metal to metal. The two processes impart different properties to the products.

NatSteel Asia uses cross-country, single- and two-strand tandem bar mills.

Once cooled and solidified, slag can be used in soil mixtures, road stones and cement.

NatSteel Asia produces mesh and prefabricated steel structures, which cut wastage, reduce land and labour costs, and are delivered just-in-time to sites.

NatSteel Asia produces rods of diameters ranging from 5.5mm to 16mm. Examples of the grades of rods produced are:
• Low Carbon Quality
• Welding Electrode Quality
• High Carbon Quality
• Cold Heading Quality (Rimmed, Aluminium-killed)