Baosteel Launches Domestic First: 98mm Extra-Thick, Ultra-Wide, High-Performance S31603 Stainless Steel Plate for Pressure Vessels

According to Baowu Steel Group, Baosteel’s Heavy Plate Business Unit recently successfully delivered a domestically first-of-its-kind 98mm thick, 3000mm wide, extra-thick, ultra-wide, high-performance S31603 stainless steel plate for pressure vessels, rolled directly from large steel ingots.

With the implementation of the national “14th Five-Year Plan” series of green and low-carbon policies, the demand for key materials in national mission-oriented industries has steadily increased. Baosteel’s Heavy Plate Business Unit seized the market opportunity, leveraging its years of experience in stainless steel production and operation. By integrating resources across the full process of stainless steel manufacturing and utilizing the process expertise and equipment advantages of its ecosystem partners, Baosteel overcame critical production bottlenecks. This enabled the large steel ingot direct rolling process for extra-thick, high-quality, high-performance stainless steel plates for pressure vessels to be produced at scale.

It is reported that Baosteel’s stainless steel team, before developing the new product, held multi-level discussions with ecosystem partners and formulated a detailed new product development plan. They successfully addressed production bottlenecks in the process flow, and within just over a month, achieved seamless and efficient collaboration from the initial development concept to slab manufacturing, rolling, solution treatment, and pickling. Together, they overcame a series of technical challenges in direct rolling from stainless steel mold cast large ingots, establishing the capability for mass delivery of high-value, high-performance stainless steel with thicknesses exceeding 70mm. This eased the domestic supply shortage of extra-thick, high-quality stainless steel plates with guaranteed performance, creating a new practice in coordinated and agile delivery.

Through deep collaboration with ecosystem partners, the team achieved the domestic first launch of high-precision ultra-wide (12.7 * 3790 * 12000mm) stainless steel plates for LNG wide-width pipelines, completing the import substitution for similar products. This breakthrough resolved the supply bottleneck for “chokepoint” materials in the “last mile” of LNG pipeline transport from LNG carriers to onshore LNG storage tanks, achieving a win-win situation.