The World Steel Association announced the regional champions of the sixth steeluniversity Challenge.
The regional championship took place on 15 November 2011 over a single 24 hour period. The entrants were challenged to produce the ‘linepipe’ grade of steel using linked blast furnace and basic oxygen furnace simulations from steeluniversity.org at the minimum overall cost.
This round identified regional champions in the ‘Industry’ and ‘Student’ categories from the following five regions: North America, Latin America, Europe-CIS, Middle East-India-Africa, and East Asia-Oceania. The regional champions will be invited to compete for the title of World Champion at worldsteel in Brussels in February 2012. Leaders of the global steel industry will be present to watch the grand final as it unfolds.
Commenting on the results Dr Edwin Basson, Director General of the World Steel Association, said “The new structure of the Challenge brings a better balance of worldwide participation as well as representation and more excitement. We look forward to having the regional champions in Brussels for the final round and watching them battle it out in a more intensive environment”.
This year’s competition attracted more than 34,000 attempts from 650 teams representing 25 different countries. 382 teams successfully completed the task. The lowest cost achieved at the regional championship was USD 296.84/tonne.
The regional winners of the Industry category
| Region | Team members | Affiliation | Country |
| Latin America | Helder Campos de Carvalho Filho, Vitor Maggioni Gasparini | Gerdau Acominas | Brazil |
| North America | Colin C. Tomazin, Nathan Falkenberg | U.S. Steel | US |
| Europe-CIS | Nicholas Bruce | Tata Steel Europe | UK |
| East Asia-Oceania | Lu Fei, Yu Chen | Shougang Qiangang | China |
| Middle East-India-Africa | Sabyasachi Saha, Supriyo Chakraborty | Tata Steel India | India |
The regional winners of the Student category
| Region | Team members | Affiliation | Country |
| Latin America | Heliiton Morais Rego Lima Filho, Fernando Emerson Viana Sousa | Universidade Federal do Ceara | Brazil |
| North America | Vivek Thapliyal, Siddhartha Biswas | Missouri University of Science and Technology | US |
| Europe-CIS | Michael Riedler, Daniel Kopplmayr | University of Leoben | Austria |
| East Asia-Oceania | Guoqing Luan, Shengqiang Song | Wuhan University of Science and Technology | China |
| Middle East-India-Africa | Prabhash Kumar Panda | National Institute of Technology Rourkela | India |
