First German manufacturer of cold rolled steel in Taicang

Customized cold rolled steel strip for the Asian market

Waelzholz has been operating the first German cold rolling mill in China, located in the city of Taicang about 60 km north of Shanghai, since early 2014. The facility has its origin in the service center Waelzholz New Material Co., Ltd., which, as a wholly owned Waelzholz subsidiary, has been supplying the Asian market with precisely tailored steel strip products since 2007. The cold rolling mill features state-of-the-art production facilities on a production floor that now covers more than 25,000 m² (269,098 sq ft). In order to meet the Asian market’s growing demand, Waelzholz expanded the existing factory in 2020, doubling its manufacturing capacity at the Chinese site. In total, the mill now has two high-performance four-high reversing stands, two slitting lines, one cut-to-length line, two oscillators, and eight high-convection annealing furnaces.
With many years of expertise, 200 employees supply the Asian market with up to 100,000 metric tons of sophisticated steel materials every year.

By processing primary material from local suppliers, the company can implement the entire value chain locally. In combination with logistics services tailored to customers’ needs, this maximizes Waelzholz’s flexibility and minimizes delivery times for customers in China and the Asian region. By carefully calibrating the chemical composition of the hot rolled strip with the subsequent rolling and annealing processes, the company can tailor the steel materials’ performance characteristics to meet individual customer requirements. This includes the mechanical properties as well as the surface finish and maintaining exact tolerance ranges of the cold rolled steel strip. When implementing these specific customer requirements, the team in Taicang can always draw on the technical expertise of the entire Waelzholz Group.

In addition to the cold rolling mill, Taicang Waelzholz – Kern-Liebers New Material Co., Ltd. is also located in Taicang, a joint venture between C.D. Wälzholz KG and the company’s long-term customer and partner Hugo Kern und Liebers GmbH & Co. KG. This subsidiary focuses on the production of textured cold rolled steel strip and is equipped with a state-of-the-art Sendzimir mill for this purpose.