In partnership with Nippon Steel Corporation (NSC), HH Stainless is spearheading the green revolution through our collaboration with NSC for the first green stainless steel duplex pipes – NSCarbolex^TM Neutral^*1. In the middle of 2025, our Chairman Mr. Low had flown down to Japan to commemorate the official signing, marking the first order of green stainless steel pipes to hit the shores of Singapore.

Signing of NSCarbolex Neutral with  Nippon Steel Corporation, Nippon Steel Trading and HH Stainless

“Sustainability for the next generation”

At HH Stainless, our vision of sustainability has led the company to continuously look for greener sources of supplies to cater to the ever changing requirements of our clients now and into the future for the next generation. HH Stainless recognizes the efforts of Nippon Steel’s Carbon Neutral vision and being long time partners of Nippon Steel, had taken the first steps to collaborate to bring in NSCarbolex Neutral duplex pipes into the singapore and ASEAN markets.

^*1 NSCarbolexTM Neutral is the Nippon Steel’s Green Transition/Transformation Steel . It incorporates a portion of total greenhouse gas emissions savings, including CO₂, achieved during Nippon Steel’s product manufacturing processes. These savings are allocated using the mass balance approach.

Ref. NSCarbolex Neutral　：　https://www.nipponsteel.com/en/product/nscarbolex/neutral/

*The symbol mark and NSCarbolex are trademarks of Nippon Steel Corporation.

HH Stainless, a leading distributor in Singapore, has adopted Outokumpu Circle Green®, the world’s first towards zero stainless steel, to reduce carbon footprint of its products. It is the first delivery of Circle Green to the Asia Pacific region.

A turning point for the industry

More and more organisations in the Asia Pacific region are asking questions about the environmental impact of steel manufacturing, a sector where high carbon emissions are of growing concern.

Outokumpu Circle Green offers a practical solution to the challenge with a carbon footprint that is up to 93% lower than the industry  average*. It is a breakthrough in stainless steel production achieved using renewable and low-carbon energy forms, up to 100% recycled raw materials and reinvented production processes.

“Listed companies have a heavy focus on sustainable products,” says Low. “But the general market is not quite there yet.”

As a result, HH Stainless is expecting only a portion of its customers to show interest immediately. However, this initial order should signal to others a regional shift towards environmentally conscious purchases.

“The benefits of Circle Green speak for themselves — but raising awareness and interest is what’s needed to create demand,” says Cindy Koh, Outokumpu’s General Manager for Southeast Asia.

Low is confident it won’t be long: “I believe the demand will really kick off in next couple of years.”

The future for sustainability in Singapore

Singapore is making a concerted shift towards more sustainable building practices, with the Green Mark certification scheme and a growing preference for high life-cycle value materials like premium stainless steels incentivizing positive change. For HH Stainless, there is a Circle Green range worth getting particularly excited about: duplexes and super duplexes.

Their corrosion resistance and strength make them ideal for the oil & gas and engineering industries. Singapore’s Helix Bridge, for instance, called for 650 tons of duplex stainless steel; a material that was both strong and light able to withstand the tropical climate.
Looking ahead, stainless steel will play a vital role in the growth of technologies such as Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), which involves transporting CO2 from its source and locking it deep underground. Duplex steel’s ability to withstand extreme pressure and corrosion, makes it ideal for CCS equipment.

Beyond the steel

Beyond Circle Green, HH Stainless’ sustainability objectives are ambitious. It plans to consolidate its three warehouses into one by early 2026, introducing cleaner, greener technology like solar panels, automatic storage systems, electric vehicle charging stations and electric forklifts.

In the longer-term, HH Stainless hopes to transition at least 20% of its stock to products from greener sources over the second half of the decade, and more beyond that. It is a shift that would position the company among the distributors with the lowest carbon footprint in the APAC region.

The company recognises that becoming more sustainable is a collaborative effort, so it also plans to work closely with government bodies to promote low-emission products and practices, while expanding its reliance on Outokumpu.

“We are very happy to be working with HH Stainless for this landmark delivery,”

says Cindy Koh. “This is a big win for both Singapore and the wider APAC region. Hopefully, it is only the beginning of the journey.”

The rise of the digital economy has allowed many, the ease of access to information like never before. Stainless steel products are slowly being commoditized and easily sourced but can buyers truly rest easy after placing an order from a foreign entity that they have never ever met?

Here at HH Group, we strive to work with reputable brands while also staying agile by constantly expanding our sources, we take on the risk in your stead so that you would always have someone trustworthy to be accountable for, someone whom you can trust to always resolve your issues should any arise. Besides surveying the actual factory of production for when we are able to, we have stringent incoming processes to verify the integrity and quality of the materials.

Behind the scenes, our in-house Quality Assurance team verifies all our incoming materials using both visual inspection and Positive Material Identification (PMI) testing, allowing our customers to buy with confidence. In this article, we look to explore the two most common forms of PMI testing that we will explore below:

PMI XRF (X-Ray Fluorescence) and OES (Optical Emission Spectroscopy)

The X-ray fluorescence (XRF) is the most commonly used Non-Destructive Test (NDT) method offering the user a portable handheld analyser that delivers fast, accurate results.

The Optical Emission Spectroscopy (OES) is an optical method that can be used to detect almost all types of elements, including carbon and light elements in a variety of different matrixes including stainless steel, nickel, and carbon steel, etc.

Alloy Elements Required for Alloy Verification

The individual alloy elements listed shall be evaluated during PMI testing, based on the specified alloy grade

PMI XRF (X-Ray Fluorescence) vs PMI OES (Optical Emission Spectroscopy)

Limitations on XRF method PMI

With the portability that the XRF handheld devices offer comes a downside in which elements lighter than Magnesium cannot be measured using XRF. This limitation of XRF makes it impossible to grade materials such as low carbon stainless steels, carbon steel, and low alloy materials because Carbon cannot be measured utilizing XRF analysers.

For example, XRF can measure the elements required to identify 316 stainless steels, but cannot measure the Carbon required to identify whether that same 316 material is L or H grade. Carbon is the essential element required to verify the different grades of stainless steels ie; 316L or 316H.

Internal testing method – PMI XRF (X-Ray Fluorescence)

Here at HH Group, we employ the use of XRF analysers to provide fast, accurate chemistry and alloy identification in PMI applications for our materials whether on or off-site.

The alloy XRF principle (X-Ray Fluorescence) is one of the methods for PMI whereby the equipment used, contains low radioactive sources (isotopes) or x-ray tubes. The exposed material reflects the radiation, generating energy.

XRF analysers are able to identify pure metals and alloy grades including:

Sample of PMI Reporting Format

]]> https://www.honghock.com.sg/dtss/ Tue, 07 Mar 2023 06:36:41 +0000 https://www.honghock.com.sg/?p=6436 Stainless Steel Applications – Construction, Infrastructure & Building

Singapore has always focused on increasing our nation’s availability of fresh water due to our dependency of our neighbouring countries for it. The push for self-sustainability came in form of one the largest and most ambitious reclamation project in Singapore known as the Deep Tunnel Sewerage System (DTSS). A used water superhighway for the future, DTSS is a cost-efficient and sustainable solution conceived by PUB, Singapore’s National Water Agency, to meet the long-term needs of Singapore for used water collection, treatment, reclamation, and disposal.

Recently, HH Stainless had partnered with our mills for the supply of high-corrosion resistant super austenitic alloys that are far beyond what the traditional stainless steels are able to withstand for a portion of the 2^nd phase of the DTSS project. These are extremely corrosion-resistant materials that are able to withstand the high concentration of chemicals (chlorides), high temperatures, and low pH to achieve longer service life.

Deep Tunnel Sewerage System

Singapore’s Deep Tunnel Sewerage System (DTSS) is a sustainable solution conceived by PUB in the late 1990s to meet Singapore’s long-term needs for used water collection, treatment, reclamation, and disposal.

DTSS uses deep tunnel sewers to convey used water by gravity to centralized water reclamation plants (WRPs) located at the coastal areas. The treated used water is further purified into ultra-clean, high-grade reclaimed water called NEWater or discharged to the sea through outfalls.

DTSS is a key part of our long-term used water system which comprises a network of link sewers leading to two major tunnels (Phase 1 & 2) crisscrossing Singapore with three large WRPs at the northern (Kranji), eastern (Changi), and western (Tuas) ends of Singapore, as well as outfall pipes.

Closing Thoughts

As one of Singapore’s mega projects, our team was honoured to have played our part in Singapore’s push towards a more self-sustainable and greener future. As much as it was a challenging project for our team, we had managed to overcome issues of sourcing, supply chain and project management through the team’s resilience and unity, two of the core pillars that HH Group is built upon. But that being said, none of this could be done without our mill’s support which we have been working with them for the past few decades in a shift towards being a valued partner of high-performance materials.

We are always looking actively for partnerships with the right clients that have the same mindset as us in looking forward to a more sustainable future, hence our focus on stainless steel that is almost fully recyclable upon the end of its life cycle.

Should you share the same values and beliefs as us, feel free to reach out to us at sales@hhstainless.com.sg and we can discuss more in-depth.

Photo credits – https://www.pub.gov.sg/dtss

]]> https://www.honghock.com.sg/charitydrives2022/ Fri, 06 Jan 2023 01:19:15 +0000 https://www.honghock.com.sg/?p=6270 Our Charity Drives of 2022

As we welcome 2023 and look back to 2022, it was a year of consolidation for us as we emerged stronger with our rebranded group entity, HH Group. Although it was challenging year for us, we’ve never stopped giving back. HH Group held two donation drives where both the company and our staff contributed to charitable causes to support those in need, we are proud to be able to give back to our society.

Event: Charity Drive –  Man Fut Tong

We had organised a charity event to one of our preferred nursing homes, Man Fut Tong.

Man Fut Tong was officially opened on 13 January 2002, by the late Venerable Ho Yuen Hoe. Their mission is to provide a high standard of medical, nursing, rehabilitative, psychological social and recreational services for easy integration of the individual into the community. Our company had donated equipment and daily necessities amounting to $3000 worth to support their activities.

Event: Charity Drive – Bright Hill Evergreen Home  and Grace Lodge

Being our 2^nd donation drive, we arranged to contribute to 2 different nursing homes namely Bright Hill Evergreen Home and Grace Lodge.

Bright Hill Evergreen Home is a voluntary welfare home providing quality health care and shelther for the disadvantaged and aged sick, alleviating their hardships through holistic nursing and medical care.

Grace Lodge is a charitable nursing home that provides shelther and care for needy, handicapped persons and the aged sick in Singapore.

Donating daily necessities worth of $10,000. This program helps to foster a sense of community and purpose in all of us, and we hope this can inspire the public to help the less fortunate, to give resources be it money or time.

We Chinese have a saying known as Yin Shui Si Yuan (饮水思源), when you drink water, remember its source. Likewise, one should not forget their roots and those that have done good to you.

The Late Mr. Low Hong Kee & His Wife, Mdm. Lin Zhui came from Penglai Town in Anxi, a province in Fujian China in the early 1950s in search of a better life abroad. He had started out as a metal scrap collector foraging for parts to be sold and throughout the years, saved up enough to start Hong Hock in 1964.

In the early 1970s, opportunity had risen for the purchase of Hong Hock’s first batch of non-ferrous metals – Brass, Copper and Bronze from traders in Japan. Negotiations back then were an uphill task with the Japanese and our founder not sharing an ounce of common language. Armed with only his knack of dollars and cents, negotiations were done through “sign language” through the use of simple finger gestures and numbers to close the deal. Shortly after, the cold war came and the Japanese bought back their materials at multiples what we had originally paid for, paving the way for our stockholding business under what we call HH Group today.

Empowering Others
As much as they focused on their business, our founders never forgot their roots and frequently gave back to their Town in Anxi. Both our founders were big believers of empowering the youths through education so that they would be able step out and compete on equal footing with others.

In the 1990s, they funded the construction of He Qian Primary School (鹤前小学), Mei Bin Primary school (美滨小学) and Kui Mei Primary School (魁美小学) for the betterment of their village.

In the process, they had also setup an educational foundation called “Low Hong Kee & Lin Zhui Educational Foundation” that supports 200 students from improvised families but have excellent academic results from the Anxi Region. 100 Primary School Students would get 200 yuan each and 100 junior high school students would get 300 yuan each under this educational fund.

Mr. Low Hong Kee had passed on in the year of 2000 but his philanthropic deeds were carried on by his wife Mdm. Lin Zhui whom established the Low Hong Kee Education Foundation (刘鸿基教育基金会) in memory of him. In March 2007, the construction of the Low Hong Kee Educational Foundation Building (刘鸿基教育基金大厦) was completed. The building allowed for the foundation to become self-sustaining in the form of rental income which was then distributed to scholarships for the students of Anxi. Upon completion, this building and the funds are managed by the Anxi Educational Bureau.