Are you curious about the lives of POSCO’s overseas expatriates who enjoy working and leisure in an exotic environment? POSCO Newsroom reports on the local lives of overseas expatriates. In place 4, we’ll introduce Yu-sang Lee, the leader who works at POSCO International’s Johannesburg branch.

Hello, my name is Yu-sang Lee, and I work at POSCO International’s Johannesburg branch. I was first assigned to South Africa in December 2021, as the COVID-19 pandemic was nearing its end, and am now in my third year here. My primary responsibilities involve business development in the steel and raw materials sectors.

POSCO International operates a network in more than 80 locations globally, with branches in six countries in Africa, including South Africa, Nigeria, Morocco, and Egypt. Among these, our Johannesburg office has recently reestablished itself as the regional headquarters for 44 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa In this capacity, we play an important role in exploring and establishing POSCO’s presence in African markets.

*Nickel Briquette: Nickel powder is pressed into a briquette shape.

Our main business areas include developing steel, raw materials, food resources, and project ventures. We actively explore various business opportunities in Africa covering not only southern Africa, including South Africa, but also East Africa (such as Kenya and Tanzania) and West Africa (including Nigeria, Senegal, and Ghana). We are committed to establishing the POSCO name and expanding our presence throughout the continent.

Twenty years ago, I had the unexpected chance to live in South Africa for about six months. Since then, South Africa has held a special meaning for me. Later, when I joined the company, my first overseas assignment happened to be in South Africa. Given my personal connection to the country, it felt like a remarkable opportunity almost as if it were meant to be. Over the past three years working here, I’ve seen firsthand the vast potential and opportunities in the African market.

Working in Africa is quite rare, so I had limited information before my assignment. Some colleagues offered humorous advice, saying, “Watch out for lions! I hear they sometimes walk around the streets!” Looking back, I can’t help but laugh. In fact, I found Africa to be surprisingly similar to Korea in certain ways. There is warmth and camaraderie among people, a love of music and food, and a strong respect for elders, so many aspects felt familiar. And, of course, there are no lions roaming the streets. Just like in Korea, you would have to go on a safari to see them!

Many people say Africa is a place where “nothing is impossible, but nothing is easy.” When I first arrived in South Africa, I often felt impatient and stressed, and struggled to let go of the fast-paced mindset typical of Korea. However, as I observed projects that I nearly abandoned eventually coming to fruition, I came to understand that working and thriving here requires patience and adaptability. I think my role as an expatriate is to balance Korea’s fast-paced efficiency with Africa’s more relaxed rhythm.

This balance requires mutual understanding fostered with regular open communication. In South Africa, there is a tradition called the “braai,” a weekend barbecue where friends and family come together to enjoy food and exchange stories. At our office, we often hold Friday braais to create a space for informal connections. As we grill meat, drink beer, and engage in casual conversation, we find that new ideas for work often emerge naturally from these interactions.

Besides security, another challenging aspect of life here are the frequent power and water outages. We experience scheduled blackouts ranging from 2.5 hours to as long as 12 hours every day. These outages have made me truly appreciate the simple continuity of electricity and water supply, something I took for granted in Korea.

Hearing this, many people might wonder, “How do you manage to live there?” But aside from certain issues, South Africa is actually a very appealing place. The skies are bright and clear nearly all year, and the people are warm and welcoming. Watching my children run freely in the vast outdoors gives me a sense of openness and peace that makes concerns such as power cuts and security feel like minor inconveniences.

▲ Image source (center) : Gold Reef City site (www.goldreefcity.co.za)

Many people mistakenly believe Johannesburg is South Africa’s capital. In fact, South Africa has three capitals: Cape Town for the legislature, Bloemfontein for the judiciary, and Pretoria as the administrative capital. However, Johannesburg is the country’s primary economic hub. Johannesburg naturally evolved into South Africa’s economic hub following the discovery of gold here long ago, and it continues that legacy.

This is why large corporations, including many international ones from countries such as Korea, have established a presence in the city. Johannesburg is also home to several notable attractions, including the Apartheid Museum, which chronicles South Africa’s democratic journey and the legacy of its first Black president, Nelson Mandela, and Gold Reef City, a theme park featuring the southern hemisphere’s largest roller coaster and a 60-table casino.

Beyond Johannesburg, South Africa offers other remarkable destinations. There is Table Mountain, named for its flat, table-like summit, and the Cape of Good Hope, a site many of us learned about in school as the point discovered by Portuguese explorers Vasco da Gama and Bartolomeu Dias.

Other spots less familiar to Koreans but popular with European travelers, include Camps Bay with its beautiful beaches, Chapman’s Peak Drive, a coastal road renowned for its beauty often featured in car commercials, and Boulders Beach, where you can see wild penguins.

South Africa also offers unique wildlife experiences such as African-style quad-bike safaris where you can follow animals off road, or even walking with elephants. I once participated in an elephant walking experience with my child, and it was unforgettable.

South Africa is also famous for its wine and steak. Although South African wine is not widely known in Korea, it is highly regarded for its quality and affordability, and those who try it here are often captivated. There are roughly 600 wineries in South Africa, and one of my favorites is Rust en Verde, where the wine-pairing steak menu is exceptional.

As an expatriate, I have a goal that I am deeply committed to achieving. I want to prove the old saying “Africa is a market of infinite potential and opportunity” with tangible business results. I hope that our initiatives will act as a catalyst to create opportunities to invest more resources and personnel and ultimately lead to additional success stories.

In South Africa, there’s a word that the late President Mandela cherished: “Ubuntu.” It embodies a sense of community and means “We exist through one another.” Unlike the past, when nations entered Africa only in search of resources, we now must recognize Africa’s potential for growth and work alongside its people to build a future together. Every member of our branch is committed to realizing the value of shared growth here in Africa and working tirelessly each day to foster this vision.

The Barbecue Grill—Then and Now

The term itself, or so conventional wisdom says, comes from the Spanish word barbacoa, which refers to the wooden structure the Arawak people of South America used to roast meat in the seventeenth century.

By the 1700s, the practice had arrived in the Southeastern US, where pigs were pit-roasted for hours; different cooking styles emerged during westward expansion, varying in sauce, cut of meat and use of wood smoke. Yet, it wasn’t until the late 1940s when open brazier grills became a backyard fixture in suburban America.

The first grills weren’t without their flaws, however. Braziers often burned meat without cooking it and ash storms were common on windy days.

But in the early 1950s, George Stephen changed the game with his iconic hemispherical grill design, jokingly referred to as “Sputnik” by his neighbors.

Stephen, a welder, was employed by Weber Brothers Metal Works, a metalwork shop that dealt in welding steel spheres together to make buoys. Annoyed by ash getting into his food when he grilled, Stephen took the lower half of a buoy, welded three steel legs onto it and fashioned a shallower hemisphere for use as a lid. He took his project home and soon enough, established Weber-Stephen Products Co.

Stephen’s kettle grill is still considered to be the quintessential American grill design and has remained one of the most commercially successful charcoal grill designs to date. Still, grill styles continued to evolve from ones that use charcoal briquettes, like Stephen’s, to gas-fueled devices, and later infrared burners.

Portable burners like the hibachi (not to be confused with the Japanese heater) made grilling on-the-go easier, thus changing camping and picnic practices forever. Hibachis are typically made of cast iron and resemble traditional, Japanese, charcoal-heated cooking utensils called shichirin.

In recent years, designer Klaus Aalto redefined portable grilling with his City Boy Picnic Grill for Finnish manufacturer Selki-Asema. The grill’s shell is made of powder-coated steel, the grill of stainless steel and the handle of stainless steel and oak. Measuring in at just 7.1 inches wide, 7.1 inches deep and 8.7 inches tall, the grill can easily be taken along on a boat trip, for a walk in the forest or simply out in your garden.

Grilled to Perfection

There are multiple reasons why so many grill manufacturers are incorporating various types of steels—ranging from stainless to porcelain-coated to chrome-plated—into their product components.

Stainless steel generally doesn’t yield the same amount of high heat that a cast iron grill is able to produce, but what it lacks in temperature, it makes up for with heat retention. Steel is also much more durable and resilient, able to withstand harsher elements such as sun, wind, rain and salt. This makes it an ideal material for a device that is most often kept outdoors.

While steel grates typically darken with use, this is considered normal (though a quick wipe with a grill brush will solve this) and there’s virtually no clean up since the steel needs no oiling. Maintenance is also easier.

The cooking surfaces on stainless steel grills tend to be larger than those of cast iron grills but this is for good reason—they need to be able to retain enough heat to effectively sear and/or cook food.

Methods of grilling have certainly come a long way since their humble beginnings. This progress, undoubtedly, is due in no small part to the many steels that make the modern-day barbecue possible.

Yet, even though the ways and devices we use to grill have vastly changed over the years, the undeniable enjoyment that results from a barbecue remains constant. So, whether you’re roasting hotdogs over a campfire or searing a steak on your brand-new, high-tech stainless steel grill this summer, bon appétit!

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POSCO Energy formed a consortium with Japanese general trading company Marubeni, each contributing 50 percent, to take part in the project, which is worth $800 million. POSCO Energy will jointly operate and maintain the power plants with Marubeni over the next three decades.

POSCO Energy plans to begin the construction of the power plants of Morupule B Phase II during the second half of 2016, and will start operation in May 2020. Special environment-friendly Circulating Fluidized Bed (CFB) combustion will be installed in the power plants to lower the emissions of pollutants such as nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides. The plants will receive coal from nearby Morupule Coal Mine for smooth supply and delivery of raw materials.

GS Engineering & Construction Corp. will be in charge of Engineering Procurement Construction (EPC). Six hundred million dollars, about 80 percent of the total investment, will be financed by Export-Import Bank of Korea, Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) and an international commerce bank for project financing.

Botswana is the world’s second largest diamond producer and has a transparent administrative process and a stable political system. It is also showing rapid economic development, due to abundant natural resources. Botswana plans to build 1200-megawatt power plants locally by 2019 to deter dependence on imported power from South Africa, leading to high expectations for new business in the future.

“Being selected as a preferred bidder for this project is meaningful in that we have successfully entered the privately managed power plant business through international bidding in Botswana. Following this, we will establish a foothold to make forays into the power plant market in southern Africa and to make POSCO Energy a leading global energy company,” said Yoon Dong-jun, CEO of POSCO Energy.

POSCO Energy recently completed the construction of combined-cycle LNG power plants No. 7, 8 and 9 in Incheon, solidifying its position as the largest private energy producer in Korea. It is currently working on the construction of 2100-megawatt environment-friendly, coal-fired thermal power plants in Samcheok. POSCO Energy plans to grow as a globally integrated energy company through diversifying energy businesses in Korea and overseas, such as completing construction of the Mong Duong II Coal-Fired Thermal Plant in Vietnam and the CHP5 Coal-Fired Cogeneration Power Plant in Mongolia.

 
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It is perhaps the latter element that is the most essential in this epic car chase of a movie. The film’s footage embellishes an exceedingly creative procession of real steel automobiles tearing through the desert at rip-roaring speeds, symbols of power and objects of worship in a desperate time when even humans have been reduced to commodities valued only for their utility. (Source: Warner Bros. via http://bit.ly/1JhMUa0)

Behind the Design

Because the vehicles play such an important role in Mad Max, their designs were not taken lightly. Envisioned by production designer Colin Gibson, under the direction of George Miller, one of the film industry’s most innovative visionaries, the creation of the movie’s iconic automobiles began in 2003, when the project was slated to be filmed in South Africa.

Considering the setting of the movie—a post-apocalyptic wasteland—Gibson built the cars by repurposing found objects, the way that they would most likely be built after the collapse of civilization. He spent years scouring the junk yards of Australia and Nambia, searching for vintage pieces and parts that possessed the same personality attributes of the characters that would be driving the titanic vehicles.

The automobiles were built in a workshop next to the art department and set decoration so that a team of creatives, artists, mechanics and even a steel department could easily collaborate and collectively bring them to life. In the end, 88 cars were used in the movie, but 150 were made in total. Of these, half were blown up, flipped or split in half during filming. (Source: Warner Bros. via http://bit.ly/1Ll2Sjk) 

Putting the Pieces Together

Despite the large number of vehicles created, careful attention was paid and much consideration was given to each model. For example, for the War Rig, the most important and central vehicle of the bunch, Gibson generated 41 drawings of the colossal truck, working alongside Mark Gatt, Steel Department Supervisor. The steelwork required fabricating, rolling, welding and cutting to modify and build the beast, which incorporated spikes, vents and lighting panels in its inventive design.

The Doof Wagon, which leads Immortan Joe’s troops to battle, and transports the Doof Warrior, a flame throwing guitarist, and his band of drummers, steals the show. The vehicle, seemingly straight out of a heavy metal concert, was constructed from a stripped down eight-wheel-drive rocket launcher truck, and utilizes a supercharged V8 engine, a wall of speakers and steel air-conditioning ducts from the insides of a number of large buildings as drums. (Source: Warner Bros. via http://bit.ly/1CrGLjO )

Yet the most terrifying looking vehicles of Mad Max belong to the Buzzards, a scrap merchant tribe that seeks to consume the remains of the old world, and are encapsulated in a rusty shell of metal spikes. One of these vehicles, the Buzzard Excavator is a MAN 6×6 tractor covered in 1,757 steel spikes hand-fabricated from old car panels. Coincidentally, this just so happens to be the same number of quills on the Australian anteater, an animal native to the area where the movie was shot.

As simple and as fundamental as steel is, it’s certain that Mad Max: Fury Road would not be the cinematic masterpiece it is without the metal. Furthermore, the film’s impressive cars are also a testament to the power and importance of steel in a time when nothing else exists. And while Earth may not experience an apocalypse anytime soon, in the case that one does happen, we can rest assured knowing steel will still be as reliable as ever. (Source: Warner Bros. via http://bloom.bg/1zXlvqD )