Argent Richards Bay (now Phoenix Steel - Richards Bay) was born out of Phoenix Steel Empangeni, a satellite branch started by Phoenix Steel Natal. In essence, the company is a hybrid between a steel merchant and a steel service centre. On the merchanting side, Argent Richards Bay specialises in the supply of plate, hot rolled sheets, galvanised sheets, light and heavy sections, tubing, cold formed sections and roof sheeting.

The company is also thinking of venturing into the supply of standard stainless steel and aluminium sheet and plate market. In addition, Argent Richards Bay also distributes Centurion gate motors, Jetmaster braais and fireplaces and Mentis handrailing and grating. In 2002 a reinforcing cutting and bending line was commissioned. This can handle up to 32 mm diameter high tensile steel.

The service centre includes profile cutting (up to 200mm), plate bending, plate rolling, punching, guillotining, plasma cutting and light fabrication facilities. The company is currently modernising and increasing the capacity of its service centre especially in the plasma cutting and plate rolling areas. Current customers include Umhlatuze Municipality, Mondi, Tongaat-Hulett, Protekon, Illovo Sugar, R.B.C.T., S.A. Port Operations and Ticor as well as many other structural steel fabricators who have contracts with the major corporations in the area. Argent Richards Bay services areas as far afield as Pongola, Glencoe, Newcastle, Vryheid, Ulundi and Isithebe.

Phoenix Steel - Gauteng

Phoenix Steel Gauteng is the main steel stockholding centre for the Argent Group and is also a supplier to other customers in the Gauteng,North West,Namibia and Botswana. A wide range of steel products is kept here and converted from basic steel into sheets blanks and tubes. The company runs a fleet of 11 heavy vehicles and has a staff of approximately 120 people. The steel is loaded day and night by 10 overhead cranes ranging in capacities from 5 ton to 32 ton. The product range of standard products consists of:

Sections

Angles from 25x25 to 100x100
Channels from 76x38 to 300x100
IPE 100x55 to 160x82
Flats 20x3 up to 130x10
Rounds and squares
Universal Beams and Universal columns
We offer a cutting service on these above with two large band saws capable of cutting the largest U Beam.

Flat Products

Commercial Quality Plates from 2500x1200x4.5 to 3600x2000x250 thick
Certified Plates to SABS1431 GR300WA, Wear Plates.Boiler Plates,BS4360 Gr 50B/ En10025 Plates and Roqlast and Roqtuf plates in the range from 6mm up to 25mm.We also supply Vastrap plates cut from coils.

Hot Rolled sheets are kept in standard sizes on the floor but we can cut non-standard sizes on our cut to length lines and guillotines. Thicknesses from 1.60 to 4.00 and commercial quality,Pickled and oiled and Supraform qualities are kept in stock in coil form.

Cold Rolled and Galvanised sheets are kept in standard sizes from 0.50 to 2.00 thick and we can provide a cutting service on our lines and guillotines.

Our equipment consists of:

A light cut to length 0.50 to 1.60
Medium cut to length 1.60 to 6.00
2 slitters capable of cutting up to 3mm coils
Guillotines and a bending brake

Tubular Products

The material is slit and manufactured into tubes on our premises

Our range is:

Rounds: 19.7ODx1.6 to 101.6OD x2.5
Squares: 19x19 x1.6 to 76x76x2.5
Rectangles: 25x19x1.6 to 100x50x2.5

We have two tube mills in operation and will be adding finishing equipment to these in the 2005 financial year.