Steel Manufacturing And Metal Fabrication

Industrial gases play key roles in primary and fabricated metals production, including steel manufacturing and metal fabrication. Steel is essential to almost all industrial sectors, including automotive, construction and defense. Oxygen plays a key role in the steel manufacturing process: it is a primary raw material for making steel.

Oxygen is crucial in the two dominant steel-making technologies in Ghana: the basic oxygen process (BOP) and the electric arc furnace. In addition, argon is used in conjunction with oxygen in a common technology for refining stainless steel. Industrial gases also have important applications in metal fabrication. For instance, acetylene is used for welding and metal cutting and argon is used as a shielding gas for the electric arc welding of nonferrous and specialty metals. Nitrogen is used in heat-treating and metalworking for products such as metal sheeting, rods, wires and castings.