Korea’s steel, wire industries focus on EV-related businesses

[Photo provided by POSCO]

Korean steel and electric wire industries are focusing on selling products for electric vehicles to counter a chronic sluggishness in exports of other products.

According to industry sources on Monday, POSCO Group recently decided to strengthen cooperation with Japan’s Honda Motor Co. in the steel sector and also agreed to collaborate on battery materials for EVs. The two companies will jointly develop technologies for cathode and anode materials, solid-state batteries and battery recycling.

Hyundai Steel Co. is expanding its sales of hot-stamping steel in Europe. To this end, the company invested 21.3 billion won ($16 million) in its hot-stamping steel factory in Ostrava, Czech Republic, which began commercial production recently. In 2020, Hyundai Steel invested 58 billion won to build the factory, capable of producing 3.4 million steel sheets annually to cover 200,000 vehicles a year from Hyundai Motor Co. in the country.

Hot-stamping steel is a high-strength steel product made by heating steel plates, forming them in molds, and then rapidly cooling them. This enables the production of thin, strong and complex-shaped car bodies. While only about 15 percent of hot-stamping steel is used in conventional internal combustion engine cars produced by Hyundai and Kia Corp., the figure rises to 20 percent for EVs.

Hyundai Motor and Kia use hot-stamped steel for about 15 percent of all steel plates in their internal combustion engine vehicles. For EVs, however, the share is as high as 20 percent.

SeAH Besteel Holdings Corp. recently included steel plates for EVs in its top three new businesses, along with hydrogen and aerospace.

The wire industry is focusing on resources and materials for EV batteries. Toricom, an affiliate of LS MnM Co., a non-ferrous metal materials company under LS Group, recently completed a nickel sulfate production plant with an annual capacity of 5,000 tons in Asan, south of Seoul.

LS MnM supplies nickel crude sulfate, with over 18 percent of nickel content, from its copper smelting process, while Toricom produces nickel sulfate, with 22.3 percent of nickel content, for EV batteries.