EUROFER REACH guidance for the European Steel Industry. 09.09 ...

REACH Guidance for the European Steel Industry
EUROFER position paper
12
determining the borderline between
preparations/articles for steel and steel products (28 October 2008)
Background
Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18
December 2006 concerning the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of
Chemicals (REACH), is a regulation on substances 13 . Unless exempted from scope or from
registration in accordance with Annex IV or V, substances on their own or in preparations 14
are always subject to registration when manufactured in, or imported into, the EU.
Substances on their own and in preparations in the form of , or contained in, articles
produced in or imported into the EU are subject to registration only if they are intended to be
released under normal or reasonably foreseeable conditions of use and if this use of the
respective substance have not been registered before in the Community.
This paper establishes the borderline between steel alloys (preparations) and steel products in
the form of articles. In this paper, it will be shown that slabs, bars, billets and blooms made of
steel alloys 15 have article status under REACH. The argumentation has been developed in
close co-operation with the International Iron and Steel Institute (IISI) and is supported by the
global steel industry in so far it applies to European law. Furthermore, this paper is based on a
legal opinion received from the law firm “Mayer Brown International LLP”.
Main Steel process stages
There may be up to four main stages in steel processing. Overall, the first three stages are
aimed to change and/or refine the shape and size of the material to progressively bring it
closer and closer to its final main shape, as illustrated in the flow diagram on page 5 of this
position paper.
Stage 1: cast ingots
In the first stage, liquid steel is poured into moulds having the shape and surface appropriate
to the subsequent processing regardless of the chemical composition. The shape generally
resembles a truncated pyramid or truncated cone, but cast ingots with additional shapes are
also produced. Trade literature and standards 16 makes a distinction between cast slab ingots of
rectangular cross section of width twice the thickness or over, and other cast ingots having a
cross section that may be square, rectangular (of width twice the thickness), polygonal, round,
oval or shaped according to the profile to be rolled.
12 Dated 29 August 2008
13 Definition of substance out of the REACH Regulation (Article 3 (1)) : means a chemical element and its compounds in
the natural state or obtained by any manufacturing process, including any additive necessary to preserve its stability and any
impurity deriving from the process used, but excluding any solvent which may be separated without affecting the stability of
the substance or changing its composition
14 Definition of preparation
more substances
out of the REACH Regulation (Article 3 (2)) :means a mixture or solution composed of two or
15 Definition of alloy out of the REACH Regulation (Article 3 (41)) : means a metallic material, homogenous on a
macroscopic scale, consisting of two or more elements so combined that they cannot be readily separated by mechanical
means
16 EN 10079:1992 E, "Definition of steel products"
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