Spanish stainless steel producer Acerinox S.A. has announced that it will invest €5 million to install a new slitting line at its Columbus Stainless plant in South Africa, as well as over €3 million for replacing the melting shop refrigerated vault of electric furnace No. 2 at its Acerinox Europa plant in Algeciras, Spain.
According to Acerinox, the new slitting line at Columbus Stainless plant will improve its service to clients with cut-to-length materials and will also improve its production, increasing monthly exports by 3,000 mt. This new equipment will also increase direct sales to the company’s clients from the factory, improving service and reducing delivery times.
Meanwhile, the replacement of the Acerinox Europa melting shop electric furnace vault will allow optimization of production processes and improvements in costs and energy efficiency, thanks to the reduction in refractory and electrodes consumption and the increase in furnace availability time. The installation of this new machinery is another step forward in caring for the environment as it allows reducing consumption of graphite electrodes by 10 percent, thereby reducing CO2 emissions from this section. Less volume of water will also be needed for it to work and productivity will be improved.