The steel industry is the largest user of molybdenum, accounting for more than 80% of molybdenum mined in the world.
Molybdenum is used to improve mechanical and physical properties of all kinds of steels. Applications for our products include additions to constructional alloy steels, tool and high speed steels, stainless steels, super alloys and cast irons as well as cast steels.
Climax Molybdenum is one of the world's leading producer of molybdenum for metallurgical applications. Our metallurgical products comprise Technical Grade Oxide in powder form as well as in briquettes (carbon-free) and Ferromolybdenum in various grain sizes manufactured at our production facilities in the US and Europe.
About 35% of all metallurgical molybdenum products are used in alloy steels.
This includes:
- Constructional alloy steels used for component parts in machine tools, trucks and mining equipment.
- High strength low alloy steels (HSLA) used in such applications as pipelines for gas and oil transmission.
- High temperature steels used in heat exchangers, power generation equipment and other parts that must operate at extremely high temperatures.
Those steels generally contain up to 1% molybdenum added to improve hardenability, weldability, toughness and heat resistance.
Another 35% of all metallurgical molybdenum products are added to:
- Stainless steels in amounts ranging from 1 to 4 % where molybdenum improves the corrosion resistance of stainless steels. Higher additions can be found in some stainless steels for special applications. For example, duplex steels have found increasing entry into the chemical industry, ship building etc.
- Super alloys in additions of up to 30% are used for parts in jet engines and in turbine wheels.
About 13% each of all metallurgical molybdenum is consumed in the production of:
- Tool steels and high speed steels
- Cast iron and steel castings
For sales and technical assistance please contact your local sales office in Europe, Asia, or the Americas, or email us at climax@FMI.com
