Visiting Tangsteel, subsidiary of HBIS Group, and exchanging on JVD and Volteron innovative technologies

On the morning of January 12, 2026, Francois-David Martino, CEO of John Cockerill Industry and his delegation visited Tangsteel, a subsidiary of HBIS Group. Zhang Chi, Chairman of Tangsteel, warmly received the guests. Both sides engaged in in-depth discussions on deepening past cooperation and expanding future collaborative areas, reaching a series of consensus.

At the beginning of the meeting, Chairman Zhang Chi extended a warm welcome to Mr. Francois David Martino and his delegation and reviewed the history of cooperation between the two parties. He pointed out that John Cockerill, as a globally renowned industrial technology enterprise, boasts profound expertise in metallurgical equipment and cutting-edge technologies, with a solid foundation and fruitful outcomes from their previous collaborations. Tangsteel has always adhered to an open and collaborative development philosophy, continuously advancing technological innovation and industrial upgrading. In particular, it has established large-scale and high-end production capacity in the field of cold-rolled products, and the successful commissioning of previous cold-rolling projects has further solidified its capacity to supply high-end steel products.

Mr. Francois David Martino expressed gratitude for Tangsteel’s warm reception and highly recognized Tangsteel’s leading role in the transformation and upgrading of the steel industry. He provided a detailed introduction to John Cockerill Industrial Division’s development strategy, highlighting the company’s two newly developed technologies: Volteron and JVD.

• JVD technology, a vacuum jet vapor deposition technique, deposits metal coatings in a vacuum environment, offering high precision, flexibility, and sustainability. It boasts advantages including higher production efficiency and scenario flexibility, superior safety adaptability, and better energy consumption and environmental performance, aligning with green development principles. It represents a disruptive new zinc-plating process.
• Volteron technology is a revolutionary electrolytic process that utilizes clean electricity to directly convert iron ore into metallic iron without the need for carbon elements, offering significant advantages in energy conservation, consumption reduction, and carbon emission reduction. It is highly compatible with Tangsteel’s green and low-carbon development needs.

The technical teams from both sides engaged in in-depth exchanges on the application scenarios, performance advantages, and adaptation plans of these two technologies, laying a solid foundation for future technological cooperation.

When discussing future cooperation, both sides agreed to continue their long-standing friendly cooperative relationship and take Tangsteel’s new projects as important opportunities for comprehensive and in-depth collaboration. They will establish a dedicated cooperation team to facilitate precise alignment between John Cockerill’s cutting-edge technologies and Tangsteel’s actual production needs, with a focus on enhancing the intelligence and greenness of production lines. This will assist Tangsteel in further expanding its production capacity for high-quality steel grades such as high-end automotive panels and high-grade home appliance panels, thereby strengthening its core market competitiveness.

This visit has built a closer communication bridge between the two parties and further clarified the direction of cooperation. Leveraging their respective resources and technological advantages, both sides will continue to deepen industry-university-research collaborative innovation, jointly promoting the high-quality development of the steel industry and achieving mutual benefits and win-win outcomes.

Zhou Guoping, Deputy General Manager of Tangsteel, and relevant leaders from the Automotive Sheet Company accompanied the reception and participated in the discussions.