Strength of Steel
April 2024
Collborating for worldwide influence
We are back in business this year at Wire and Tube 2024 in Düsseldorf.
March 2024
Creating a virtuous circle
Circularity is essential to make the most of the planet’s resources. That is why many political and business leaders see it as an integral tool to achieve climate neutrality by 2050.
February 2024
Sustainability driving demand in Europe
We foresee demand growing for steel with a low carbon footprint – steel produced by recycling scrap steel in electric arc furnaces. However, there’s a limit to production capacity for low-emission steel.
January 2024
Green Metal Heads bring a new riff to recruitment
There is almost no end to the list of sub-genres in heavy metal music – black, doom, funk, glam, gothic, thrash, to name just a few. We are riffing on these with the launch of our new “Green Metal Heads” recruitment campaign for young people.
December 2023
2023 in the rearview mirror
As we bid farewell to 2023, it's time to embark on a journey down memory lane and celebrate the milestones that defined our year. In this special edition of our newsletter, we present the "2023 Yearly Recap," a comprehensive overview of the triumphs, challenges, and growth that shaped the past twelve months.
November 2023
Seeing is believing
Hot working plays a major role in improving the properties of steel. But to refine the process it would be great if we could see how the metal actually flows inside the workpiece. That is now possible thanks to an innovative approach to visualization developed by the Ovako R&D team. And the even better news is that these practical investigations show an almost perfect correlation with our computer simulations.
October 2023
Bringing the forging community together
In September, we had the privilege of hosting the EUROFORGE Autumn meeting at our Hofors mill in Sweden. It was a gathering of forging professionals from across nine different countries who came together over two days to explore the critical strategies the forging community is employing to combat carbon emissions.
September 2023
Official opening of the Hofors hydrogen plant
On 5th September 2023, we welcomed Ulf Kristersson, the Swedish Prime Minister, to Ovako to inaugurate our new hydrogen plant, alongside our CEO, Marcus Hedblom, and Miyamoto Katsuhiro, Representative Director and President, Sanyo Special Steel. Representatives from project partners Volvo Group, Hitachi Energy, H2 Green Steel and Nel Hydrogen also attended.
August 2023
Ovako´s Sustainability report for the 2022 FY is live
We're heading into an exciting fall, even though it's always a bit bittersweet to leave behind the summer and vacation season. Among the exciting things happening this fall, the biggest is undoubtedly the inauguration of our hydrogen plant in Hofors.
July 2023
Summer reading
We thrive on tackling the toughest challenges head-on. We´re not afraid to ask the difficult questions and seek out unconventional solutions.
June 2023
Mind jogging – challenge yourself
We thrive on tackling the toughest challenges head-on. We´re not afraid to ask the difficult questions and seek out unconventional solutions.
May 2023
Polestar 0 partnership
At Ovako, we use partnerships to provide benefits to our customers and stakeholders, as well as our own operations. We explored our hydrogen partnership in last month’s Strength of Steel newsletter and it’s worth diving deeper into our broader approach to partnership.
April 2023
Ovako at Green Steel World Conference
When our electrolyzer ramps up to start full-scale production after the summer break, it will enable us to cut our CO2 emissions by 20,000 tonnes per year by reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. As one of the largest electrolyzers in Europe, the plant has a capacity of 8 tonnes of hydrogen per day and a power rating of 20 megawatts.
March 2023
Sustainability is a competitive advantage
Until now, it’s been difficult to put a figure on the value of sustainability in the steel industry.
February 2023
Forging a new path
In 2017, we launched Hybrid Steel, a developing family of grades strengthened by the combination of the two well-established precipitate phases: alloy carbide and inter-metallic
January 2023
Overcome the supply bottleneck in remelted steel
As the production capacity for remelted steel is limited, it is worth looking for an alternative solution. OEMs typically buy remelted steel as it is required under long-standing technical specifications.
December 2022
Introducing our new Young Professionals Network
Customers rely on insight from our technical experts to gain a commercial edge. As we approach year-end, we are looking to the future at Ovako with the launch of our Young Professionals Network.
November 2022
Partnering for sustainability
The drive for sustainability is something that no organisation can achieve alone. That is why we work in partnership with customers, suppliers and regulators to develop a more sustainable approach to industry.
October 2022
Creating confidence through energy security
A secure and reliable supply of energy is critical to ensure continuity of steel production over the coming winter, when natural gas risks being in short supply.
September 2022
Achieving carbon neutral production
We take pride in contributing to the circular economy and producing steel that is close to carbon neutral. More than 97% of our input material comes from scrap. Read our latest Sustainability Report 2021.
June 2022
Let’s meet before the summer takes off
Finally we have the possibility to meet again. Together with our owners we have joined Tube&Wire 2022
May 2022
Grinding away the mythology of recycled steel
Historically, a number of automotive industry OEMs have been reluctant to use recycled steel for their crankshafts. This is despite its considerable potential to reduce the carbon footprint of their products.
April 2022
Facing up to challenging times
Europe was already facing up to challenging times as we emerged from the Covid-19 pandemic. Now we are facing further major disruption to supply chains following Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine.
March 2022
The Fundamental Things Apply
Within Ovako we have a lot of historical and new knowledge on steel topics that will never cease to be important: heat treatment, welding, machining, wear resistance, quantifying steel cleanness and many others.
February 2022
Why should you care about fatigue strength?
The most commonly-used standard method to determine the cleanness of a steel was developed many decades ago when steel quality was significantly lower.
January 2022
A happy new year
Good intentions are great, but positive action is what really counts. That is why at Ovako we are proud to start the new year with fully carbon-neutral operations.
December 2021
Standing strong in Hydraulics
The nature of a hydraulic cylinder requires a fairly long and slender design. That makes the risk of buckling an important dimensioning factor.
November 2021
Pioneering the possible
The current COP26 negotiations are rightly drawing a lot of attention from all around the world. Ovako was invited to present its current developments.
October 2021
Ovako adopts carbon-neutral steel production
We recently started an ambitious initiative to achieve full carbon neutrality across all Ovako’s operations.
September 2021
Bringing out the best in each other
This collaboration is focused on bringing out the best in each other to help our customers be more successful than ever before.
July 2021
Water = Hydrogen + Oxygen = Water
It seems clear that the world will need much more such renewable energy to meet the climate targets established and especially so when hydrogen from electrolyzers becomes more and more a favoured solution.
June 2021
Ovako’s sustainability report 2020
We take pride in contributing to the circular economy and producing steel that is close to carbon neutral. More than 97% of our input material comes from scrap.
May 2021
Introducing Ovako Wear Index
Wear is an important property in pure economical terms. For example, a moldboard plow is expected to have a service life of 2,000 hours.
April 2021
Electrification in the automotive sector
The only thing we really know about the future of the automotive sector is that change will continue and to an extent that we can hardly imagine.
March 2021
Navigating the universe of steel
The Steel Navigator helps designers and engineers find the right steel grade, explore material data sheets, consult heat treatment guides and use calculators for machining and dimensioning.
February 2021
What makes Hybrid Steel so strong?
Making steel strong requires precise control of a number of critical factors. Hybrid Steel uses several of them in a balanced way.
January 2021
The importance of the cradle-to-gate perspective
Ovako has been working for many years to establish a true cradle-to-gate perspective of all the carbon dioxide emissions we are responsible for, both directly and indirectly.
December 2020
Our steel mills and the new VTD investment
Today we see an ever-increasing number of new demanding applications appreciating the benefits that clean steel brings.
November 2020
Machinability matters
To ensure the best possible understanding of the interaction between tool and steel, we collaborate with leaders in machining. One such leader is Sandvik Coromant with whom we share many important development activities.
October 2020
“Why does Ovako not want to sign contracts?”
Following our previous Strength of Steel newsletter, we received a very important question. A customer has asked us why is it “so hard to sign any kind of contract with Ovako? Or could we at least have some feedback on the contracts we would like to sign.”
September 2020
Building mutual trust
In the previous Strength of Steel we discussed the people side of our interaction and this time we would like to give you feedback on the “organization side of our interaction”.
August 2020
Moving on
In this letter we will discuss what conclusions have we drawn to improve the ways we interact with you, our customers.
July 2020
The Start of Something New
We are all learning to communicate in new ways and Ovako is no exception. So, we would like to welcome you to our first letter in a series we are calling ‘Strength of Steel’.