worldsteel announces the steeluniversity Challenge World Champions

The World Steel Association (worldsteel) today announced the sixth steeluniversity Challenge’s new world champions. A team from Shougang Qiangang in China won in the category for young steel industry employees. A team from Universidade Federal do Ceara in Brazil won in the student category.

The World Championship of the sixth steeluniversity.org Challenge took place in Brussels on 8 February 2012 with regional champions from the first round held late last year. They were invited to the grand final and were given the task of refining an order of linepipe steel, as used for oil and gas distribution. The contestants had two hours to produce the steel at the minimum cost while maintaining the levels of impurities and inclusions within specification. The lowest cost achieved at the world championship was $12.70/tonne.

Dr Xiaogang Zhang, chairman of worldsteel, presented trophies and certificates to both world champions and regional champions. Commenting on the results Dr Zhang said: “I am delighted to see that the steel industry is full of ambitious bright young talent, and also to see so many young students learning metallurgy and showing interest in our industry. Steelmaking today is a high-tech industry and an exciting place to work. We have great opportunities for people who want to excel in their field of interest; be it R&D, production or management”.

Dr Edwin Basson, Director General of worldsteel, said: “The virtual steelmaking challenge is a unique competition that challenges the skills of young metallurgists from universities and steelmakers from around the world. More than 100 steel companies use steeluniversity.org and 50 of them have made it an integral part of their training programmes. Students from over 400 universities worldwide train their skills using steeluniversity.org and many universities have included the simulations into their course work”.

Lu Fei and Yu Chen, the champions in the industry category, said: "We are extremely excited and happy to be the world champions. We gained so much from this Challenge; not only deeper knowledge on steelmaking processes but also better understanding of the steel industry. Particularly, we learned the spirit of 'Team Work' and 'Never Give Up' on anything".

Helilton Morais Rego Lima Filho and Fernando Emerson Viana Sousa, the student champions expressed their appreciation at having the leaders of the steel industry present at the event. "It was a wonderful experience to meet the leaders of an industry that we one day hope to join".

The world champions in the Industry category

The world champions in the Student category

Click here to watch a video of the event. Photo of the champions is attached and to see more photos click here.

To read the press release about the regional championship that took place on 15 November 2011, click here.

The regional champions in the Industry category

The regional champions in the Student category

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Notes to Editors:

• The steeluniversity.org website is a free and innovative e-learning resource focused on all aspects of steel, including steelmaking technology and the multitude of steel applications. This award-winning, on-line initiative is developed and sponsored by the World Steel Association.
• steeluniversity.org won the European Academic Software Awards (EASA) in 2004 and the steeluniversity.org project team was recognised with the AIST’s Benjamin F. Fairless Award in 2008.
• The World Steel Association (worldsteel) is one of the largest and most dynamic industry associations in the world. worldsteel represents approximately 170 steel producers (including 17 of the world's 20 largest steel companies), national and regional steel industry associations, and steel research institutes. worldsteel members represent around 85% of world steel production.