Do You Know the Color Steel Plates Used to Make 'Pengsoo House'?

[Asia Economy Reporter Park So-yeon] As the building materials market trends toward premium products, demand for color-coated steel sheets is increasing, prompting steelmakers to ramp up proactive investments.

◇ Dongkuk Steel, Pioneer in 'Color-Coated Steel Sheets' with a Super-Gap Strategy = Dongkuk Steel plans to invest approximately 25 billion KRW by the second half of next year to expand its color-coated steel sheet production line at its Busan plant to an annual capacity of 70,000 tons.

Accordingly, the color-coated steel sheet production capacity at Dongkuk Steel's Busan plant will increase from the existing 8 lines producing 750,000 tons to 9 production lines producing 850,000 tons.

This is the world's largest scale compared to competitors producing between 100,000 and 400,000 tons across 1 to 4 lines.

The newly expanded color-coated steel sheet line at Dongkuk Steel will be the world's first wide-width line (1,600 mm) combining laminate steel sheet and ultraviolet (UV) coating processes.

At this facility, specialized high value-added color-coated steel sheets such as fluorine laminate steel sheets and new products combining digital printing steel sheets with UV coating will be produced to meet the diverse demands of home appliance manufacturers and increase market share in the premium building materials sector.

Since 2011, Dongkuk Steel has been intensively investing in the color-coated steel sheet business, expanding production capacity and actively conducting brand marketing.

As a result, the color-coated steel sheet business, which maintained a production scale of around 400,000 tons focused on building materials, has grown to a scale of 600,000 to 700,000 tons encompassing home appliances and premium building materials since 2012.

The proportion of color-coated steel sheets in Dongkuk Steel's sales (separate basis) expanded from 11.5% in 2012 to 17.6% last year, and with this investment, it is expected to rise to around 20% in the future.

◇ Pengsoo's House Also Built with 'Color-Coated Steel Sheets' = Earlier, POSCO built the 'Pengsookso,' the residence of EBS's first trainee 'Pengsoo,' located in the lobby of EBS Ilsan in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province. True to POSCO's craftsmanship, Pengsookso was constructed using steel. Notably, even the exterior materials of Pengsookso, vividly printed with Pengsoo's face, are made of steel. The type of steel used for the building's exterior materials, such as the interior and exterior walls of Pengsookso, is color-coated steel sheets.

The interior and exterior walls of Pengsookso are decorated with POSART, developed by POSCO in 2018. POSART is a product with high-resolution inkjet printing on steel, capable of perfectly reproducing full-color photos as attached to Pengsookso. POSCO explained that POSART's resolution is four times higher than that of regular printed steel sheets.

Additionally, POSCO Steel Plate, a group company specializing in color-coated steel sheets, unveiled 'POSART Marble' in March last year, which vividly expresses texture. POSART Marble reproduces marble images using inkjet printers, offering construction costs about half of actual marble and the advantage of easy maintenance.