Semi-finished 316 Stainless Steel Tube

Jilaida, a professional manufacturer in China, extrudes every semi-finished 316 stainless steel tube in a single press stroke at temperatures above 1100 °C, producing a concentric hollow with wall thickness held to ±0.3 mm (±0.2 mm for deep-drawing applications) and a pickled surface free of oxide. Standard stock is OD 89 × WT 9 mm × 3000–3500 mm; custom OD 6–89 mm, WT 3–9 mm, length up to 10,000 mm. We run both 316 and 316L on the same press at the same dimensions — 316L for welded assemblies where low carbon prevents intergranular corrosion at the HAZ, standard 316 for purely mechanical drawn parts that never see a weld. As a factory-direct China manufacturer, Ji lai da controls the extrusion, pickling, and inspection in-house. The price on your quotation is the mill price, and every shipment is backed by EN 10204 3.1 MTC with full heat analysis. FOB Shanghai / Ningbo / Lianyungang, CIF to Jebel Ali / Mundra / Singapore, or DDP to your warehouse. Send your OD, wall, length, grade, and quantity to Jiangsu Ji Lai Da Nickel-Based Alloy Co., Ltd. — written offer in 24–48 hours, 30-day price hold on RFQs above 5 tons.

Why Pay 30 % More for 2 % Mo?

The PREN number — pitting resistance equivalent — is how the industry prices molybdenum. 304 sits around PREN 18. 316 sits around PREN 24–26. That 6–8 point gap is the difference between a tube that pits in chloride service in a few months and one that runs for years. Jiangsu Ji Lai Da Nickel-Based Alloy Co., Ltd. quotes 316 semi-finished at the same drawing cost as 304 — the press cycle, the billet heating, the pickling, the inspection are all the same. The only premium is the raw material: roughly 20–30% over 304 per kilogram, set by the nickel-molybdenum market, not by the mill. For buyers running instrumentation tube into offshore platforms or chemical dosing skids, that premium buys a service-life multiplier.

What Comes Out of the Drawing Bench?

Precision instrumentation tubing, thin-wall heat exchanger tube, hydraulic and pneumatic control lines, medical-grade capillary tube, marine and offshore umbilicals. Every one of these starts as a semi-finished 316 stainless steel tube — a seamless hollow that gets drawn into something tighter and thinner than extrusion alone can produce. The molybdenum in 316 carries chloride pitting resistance into the finished tube, which matters in coastal service, chemical process piping, pharmaceutical wash-down loops, and any application where the end use is wet, salty, or acidic.

Which Carbon Level: 316 or 316L?

The 316 family splits into two carbon levels — standard 316 (max 0.08% C) and 316L (max 0.03% C). The draw cost is identical. If the next step after drawing is a welded joint — a fitting welded on, a header welded to the tube end — 316L is the safer pick: low carbon prevents chromium carbide precipitation at the grain boundary in the HAZ, the root cause of intergranular corrosion in welded stainless. Jiangsu Ji Lai Da Nickel-Based Alloy Co., Ltd. runs both on the same press at the same dimensions, so you can switch the grade in the RFQ without re-tooling. If the next step is purely mechanical — a cold-drawn hydraulic line, a precision instrument tube that gets flared and swaged — standard 316 is fine and gives slightly higher strength. Tell us your downstream process and we recommend the right carbon level on the MTC.

What a Good Blank Looks Like

Ovality, wall variation, surface laps, internal scratches — every defect in the parent tube gets amplified through each drawing pass, and the buyer's scrap rate climbs. Jiangsu Ji Lai Da Nickel-Based Alloy Co., Ltd. runs 316 as a single-stroke hot extrusion: concentric OD and ID, wall held to ±0.3 mm, pickled surface free of oxide. For deeper drawing the tolerance tightens to ±0.2 mm. The point of buying a semi-finished tube is that the downstream drawing process only works if the starting hollow is right.

How to Write the RFQ

Inquiry turnaround depends on three numbers: the OD after your drawing process (1–3 mm draw-down is typical), the wall thickness you need to start with, and the as-extruded length. Add the grade (316 or 316L), the surface (pickled standard / as-extruded optional), quantity in kg or pieces, and the destination port. A written offer goes out in 24–48 hours, pricing is held for 30 days on RFQs above 5 tons, and shipping runs FOB Shanghai / Ningbo / Lianyungang or CIF to Jebel Ali / Mundra / Singapore. MTC per EN 10204 3.1 included; SGS / BV / TUV third-party inspection on the buyer's account.