Semi-finished Products

Semi-finished steel is an intermediate steel produced in a foundry. It needs further processing before being processed into finished goods. Semi-finished products are: Ingots, Billets, Blooms and Slabs. The semi-finished products are used in steel rolling mills for further production of finished products like hot rolled sections, flats, plates and sheets.

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Billet
Billets are semi-finished long steel products with a square cross section. This product is either rolled or continuously cast and is then transformed by rolling to obtain finished products. Billets are used for long steel products such as: bars/angles, profiles/channels, other structural shapes

Bloom
Blooms are semi-finished long products with a square or rectangular cross section greater than 160 mm. Blooms can be made by continuous casting or by rolling from an ingot. Common finish products include structural shapes/rails/rods and seamless.

Ingot
A mass of metal cast In a form convenient for storage or transportation. The cross section of most ingots approximates a square or rectangle with rounded corners. All ingots are tapered and are commonly cast big-end-down. For certain purposes, however, ingots are cast big-end-up.

Slab
Slabs are semi-finished steel products obtained by rolling ingots on a rolling mill or processed through a continuous caster and cut into various lengths. The slab has a rectangular cross section. Slabs are used for the production of heavy machinery or for hot rolling into other thinner products like: plates, sheet metal/strip metal, pipes/tubes, coils