Erdemir investments for Isdemir's new billet casting
Upon completion of the take-over of Isdemir by Erdemir by February 01, 2002, the scheduled investments have started to be actualized. The plans included to convert Isdemir's longs production into flats and in this way secure the company's profits at the shortest possible time. According to the announcement by Erdemir, contracts have been signed with Swiss company Concast as the main builders of the billet casting installation and with the Turkish company Ekon as the builder of domestic equipment builder. It is emphasized that the investment is worth $29million and upon completion of same saving of an annual cost of $50 million is expected. The new system to be installed will allow Isdemir to produce billets directly from crude steel instead of the existing system of rolling billets from bloom. This will improve the quality of the product while bringing the costs down and enable Isdemir to become more competitive in the market. Billet casting facility no1 which is expected to complete by June 2002, will produce commercial grade steel and no 2 which is expected to complete by August 2002 will produce both commercial grade and prime quality billets. Product specifications of both mills:Sizing length 100x100 4.5 – 12 m 120x120 130x130