On June 24, Austria-based giant engineering and plantmaking company Siemens VAI Metals Technologies (Siemens VAI) announced that the receipt of an order from Jiangxi Province-based Chinese steel producer Xinyu Iron Steel & Co., Ltd (Xinyu Steel) to provide the engineering, supply of equipment and services for a new continuous annealing line.
According to a statement released by Siemens VAI, the annealing line in question will form part of a cold rolling mill for the production of high-grade strip for the automotive industry. The new continuous annealing line will be constructed at Xinyu in Jiangxi Province and is designed to process 700,000 mt of steel strip of widths between 700 and 1,500 millimeters and thicknesses from 0.2 to 2.0 millimeters.
The order value is in the two-digit million euro range, while the continuous annealing line is scheduled to commence operation in April 2011.
Since the beginning of 2009, Siemens has already received orders from two other Chinese steel producers to supply electric and automation systems for processing lines. In February, the plantmaker received a contract from the medium sized Chinese steel producer Xingtai Iron & Steel Corp., Ltd. for engineering and supply of key equipment for an AOD stainless steel converter, a ladle furnace and a four-strand billet caster. In March, Siemens VAI received an order from another Chinese steelmaker Handan Iron and Steel Corporation to supply the automation and electrical equipment for a new annealing line and two hot galvanizing lines.
Siemens has previously supplied equipment for a hot strip mill and a coupled tandem pickling line to Xinyu Steel.