We roll-form, cut, punch and ship structural steel from our plant in Panama City. Every piece reaches you cut and punched to your drawing, labeled and ready to bolt — whether your own crew erects it or any contractor you choose.
NewCon Steel® is the cold-formed steel (LGS/CFS) manufacturer of the PEB Corp Group: it produces structural profiles from 0.85 to 2.5 mm, pre-assembled panels and complete structural kits at its CNC plant in Centro Industrial PEB, Las Mañanitas, Panama City, and ships them to Panama, Colombia, Central America and the Caribbean.
We manufacture structural steel in Panama and hand you the documentation behind every figure on this page. Need the building turnkey? That is SmartBrix Construction.
The coil enters our roll-forming line at Centro Industrial PEB, Las Mañanitas, Panama City, and comes off as your cut, punched profile — you buy from the plant that makes the part, not from a trading house that imports it and marks it up.
Coil with a zinc-aluminium-magnesium (Zn-Al-Mg) coating, 275 g/m² total both sides — ZM275 (EN 10346) / ZMM275 (ASTM A1046). That is the same coating mass as a high-grade Z275/G90 galvanized product, with superior alloy chemistry: the advantage is in the chemistry, not in the quantity.
Every profile leaves the line cut, punched, marked and labeled by CNC from the structural model, to a ±0.5 mm dimensional tolerance. On site the piece gets screwed down: no cutting, no welding, no field fitting.
Cold-forming in Panama changes the tariff heading of the goods — from flat-rolled product to structural section, heading 72.16 — and that is what supports Panamanian origin. We issue a certificate of origin; preferential treatment and the final duty are decided by the customs authority of the destination country.
From the linear meter of profile to the complete building structure. You pick the level, based on how much work you want taken off the job site.
Studs, tracks, hat channels, C-sections and Z-purlins, in thicknesses from 0.85 to 2.5 mm. CNC-cut, punched, marked and labeled. Quoted by linear meter or by ton.
Load-bearing walls, floor cassettes and roof trusses assembled in the plant from our profiles — indoors, on a jig, against a shop drawing. They arrive numbered and sequenced to the structural model, ready to lift.
The building's entire structure on a single purchase order: profiles, panels, connections and accessories, with the model and the structural calculations sealed by a licensed engineer for the code of the destination country.
Cold-formed portal frames with every hole and connection executed by CNC in the plant. Erection is bolts only: no field welding, no site galvanizing, no coating touch-up.
The same plant that supplies the group's own projects supplies your purchase order.
NewCon Steel manufactures at Centro Industrial PEB, Las Mañanitas, Panama City. Coil is uncoiled, cold-formed on the roll-forming line, then cut, punched, marked and labeled by CNC straight from the structural model, to a ±0.5 mm dimensional tolerance.
Every piece leaves identified and tied back to the shop drawing, so traceability runs from the label to the originating steel coil. Frames and panels are checked against the drawing before they are bundled for shipment.
NewCon Steel is the manufacturing unit of the PEB Corp Group — a group with more than 350 projects and more than 15 years of track record, holding ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001 and ISO 37001 certifications at group level.
Certifiable Panamanian origin, regional transit measured in days, and the tariff side handled straight, with your customs broker.
Our profiles are cold-formed in Panama from imported coil. That transformation changes the tariff heading — from flat-rolled product to structural section, heading 72.16 — which supports Panamanian origin for the goods under the rules of origin of the Central America–Panama FTA and Panama's other agreements in force.
In practice this means we issue a Panamanian certificate of origin and you can claim whatever preferential tariff treatment applies to your country under the relevant agreement. The final duty is always determined by the destination customs authority, based on its national tariff schedule, the applicable agreement and the classification of the goods. That is why we work with your customs broker from the quote stage, and can pursue an advance ruling on origin and classification for your project.
Compared by supplier category, not by brand. Every cell in the NewCon column is verifiable against a document we hand you.
| Criterion | NewCon Steel® (Panama) | Imported steel (Asia) | Local fabricator / job shop | Reinforced concrete |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Origin and transit | Manufactured in Panama City; regional transit in days | Production plus a transpacific crossing: weeks of ocean freight and customs | Short in theory; capped by the shop's capacity | Not applicable: built in place |
| Design standard | AISI S100-16 (R2020) w/S3-22 and AISI S240-20; verified against REP-2021, NSR-10 or IBC/ASCE 7 as the destination requires | Standard varies; equivalence has to be demonstrated | Varies; frequently no sealed calculations | ACI 318 or the local code |
| Dimensional tolerance | ±0.5 mm, CNC-controlled piece by piece | Varies; no piece-level traceability | Depends on the shop; hand cutting is common | Field tolerances (centimeters) |
| Coating | Zn-Al-Mg 275 g/m² total both sides (ZM275 / ZMM275), applied to the originating coil | Varies; check the actual coating mass on the mill certificate | Frequently cold galvanizing or paint applied on site | Not applicable |
| Field cutting and fitting | None: pieces cut, punched and labeled from the model | High: standard stock lengths, fitted on site | Medium to high | High: formwork, curing, weather dependency |
| Field welding | None: bolted and screwed connections | Common | Common | Not applicable |
| Sealed structural calculations | Included with the structural kit, signed by a licensed engineer | Rarely included; the buyer contracts them separately | Sometimes | Contracted by the project |
| Minimum order | No full-container MOQ | Typically a full container | Varies | Not applicable |
| Who answers when you file a claim | A plant in the region, in your time zone, backed by the PEB Corp Group | A counterparty twelve time zones away, with the container already on the ground | Local | Not applicable |
| Origin documentation | Panamanian certificate of origin; preferential treatment per the applicable agreement and the destination customs authority | Asian origin; duty treatment per the destination's tariff schedule, absent an applicable agreement | Local origin | Not applicable |
The third-party columns are market generalizations, not statements about any one supplier: check them against the offer you are evaluating. The final duty on any import is determined by the customs authority of the destination country.
The process is built so a technical buyer can evaluate the offer without sitting through a discovery call.
Linear meters, panel m² or tons; profile family and thickness; destination country and port; required on-site date. If you have drawings or a structural model, attach them.
Day 0An engineer reviews scope, thicknesses and the code that governs at the destination (REP-2021 in Panama, NSR-10 in Colombia, IBC/ASCE 7 in the Caribbean and the US) and builds the take-off.
AISI S100-16You get a quote with scope, quantities, thicknesses, coating, fabrication time and shipping terms. Lead times are confirmed against your actual order, never against an average.
48 hRoll-forming, cutting, punching, marking and labeling by CNC to a ±0.5 mm tolerance. Every piece is identified against the shop drawing and the originating steel coil.
±0.5 mmBundled, secured and loaded at the plant. The shipment goes out with the mill certificate and the Panamanian certificate of origin; the final duty is determined by the destination customs authority.
Certificate of originWe tell you what we know and flag what your customs broker confirms. The destination's customs authority sets the final duty — that is why we bring your broker in from the quote, not after the container ships.
Overland dispatch from Centro Industrial PEB, Las Mañanitas. Design verified against the Panamanian Structural Design Code (REP-2021), in force since 30 April 2023.
Regional transit in days. Panamanian origin rests on the cold-forming operation and is documented with a certificate of origin under the Central America–Panama FTA; the specific preferential treatment depends on the bilateral protocol and on the tariff heading.
Design verified against NSR-10. Duty treatment is governed by the Partial Scope Agreement in force between Panama and Colombia, which covers a closed list of products: check it by tariff heading with your customs broker before you settle the Incoterm.
Design verified against IBC/ASCE 7 in the edition your jurisdiction has adopted. Panama holds partial scope agreements with the Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago and Cuba — closed product lists; everywhere else the importing country's tariff schedule applies.
NewCon Steel manufactures steel: cold-formed LGS/CFS profiles (0.85 to 2.5 mm), pre-assembled structural panels, complete structural kits and bolted structural steel, at its plant in Centro Industrial PEB, Las Mañanitas, Panama City. NewCon Steel does not execute construction and does not hand over finished buildings: it manufactures, certifies and ships the steel. The building work is executed by the group's construction unit, SmartBrix Construction.
NewCon Steel manufactures in thicknesses from 0.85 mm to 2.5 mm, from coil with a zinc-aluminium-magnesium (Zn-Al-Mg) alloy coating at 275 g/m² total, both sides — designation ZM275 (EN 10346) / ZMM275 (ASTM A1046 Type 1) — which works out to roughly 137.5 g/m² per side. That mass matches a high-grade Z275/G90 galvanized product and sits more than 50% above the G60 structural minimum (180 g/m²) referenced by ASTM A1003. See LGS/CFS profiles from 0.85 to 2.5 mm.
NewCon Steel uses a Zn-Al-Mg alloy coating, not pure zinc. The magnesium and aluminium migrate across cut edges, punch-outs and fastener points, forming a protective film wherever bare steel is exposed — which is exactly where conventional galvanizing fails first on a cold-formed profile. In peer-reviewed literature, Zn-Al-Mg coatings show 2 to 4 times lower mass loss than conventional hot-dip galvanized steel after 4 to 6 years of real atmospheric exposure, including marine sites. Nippon Steel separately reports 10 to 20 times better performance than galvanized in accelerated salt spray testing (JIS Z 2371); salt-spray hours are not a linear predictor of service life, which is why we cite both figures and name the test behind each one.
The three NewCon Steel levels differ by how much work leaves the job site. LGS/CFS profiles are loose material, CNC-cut and punched, that your crew frames on site. Structural panels arrive already assembled in the plant — walls, floors and trusses — numbered and sequenced for lifting. A structural kit is the building's entire structure on a single purchase order, with connections, accessories and structural calculations signed by a licensed engineer.
Buying from NewCon Steel in Panama removes the transpacific crossing: transit to Central America and the Caribbean is measured in days, not weeks, and there is no full-container MOQ to clear before you can order. The goods are cold-formed in Panama — which changes the tariff heading to 72.16 and supports Panamanian origin with a certificate of origin — and your technical counterpart answers in your time zone, not twelve hours out of phase. What NewCon Steel cannot promise you is a duty rate: the final duty is always determined by the customs authority of the destination country.
No. NewCon Steel manufactures and supplies the structural steel; it does not execute construction. Inside the PEB Corp Group, SmartBrix Construction executes the build and Pre-Engineered Buildings Corp provides the engineering and the institutional relationship. If you already have a contractor, NewCon Steel sells you the steel direct and your crew erects it.
NewCon Steel members are designed to AISI S100-16 (R2020) with Supplement 3 (S3-22) — the North American Specification for the Design of Cold-Formed Steel Structural Members — and to AISI S240-20 for framing systems, with seismic design to AISI S400-20 and loads to ASCE/SEI 7-22. Verification is then run against the code of the destination country: REP-2021 in Panama, NSR-10 in Colombia, IBC/ASCE 7 in the Caribbean and the US. The structural kit ships with calculations signed by a licensed engineer. See engineering and standards.
NewCon Steel does not impose a full-container MOQ the way an Asian mill does: the production run is set against your take-off, and the commercial minimum that applies to you is confirmed in the quote, based on profile family, thickness and destination. Fabrication and shipping time are likewise confirmed against your actual order, not against a published average: send quantities, thicknesses and destination and you get a formal quote within 48 hours.
Send quantities (linear meters, panel m² or tons), profile family and thickness, destination country and required on-site date. An engineer comes back with a formal quote within 48 hours.
