Russian mining and steelmaking group Evraz has announced that it has started development of a new grinding balls production facility at Nizhniy Tagil Steel Plant (NTMK). All project activities will be completed by 2016, while the commissioning is scheduled for the third quarter of 2017.
According to the statement, in 2014 Evraz NTMK and Evraz ZSMK (West-Siberian Steel Plant) produced over 225,000 mt of grinding balls, which accounted for 60 percent of the domestic market, while almost 15 percent of the market is supplied by import. The new plant will enable the company to start production of grinding balls of fifth hardness grade, which are not currently produced in Russia and to increase annual production capacity to 135,000 mt of grinding balls with a total investment of more than RUB 1 billion.
“The launch of a new grinding balls plant will strengthen Evraz’s standing in a strategically important market where we expect a serious surge in demand. We will ramp up our production capacities by one third but, even more importantly, we will be able to deliver products that are currently unmatched domestically. Thus, we will use the import substitution potential in the segment,” commented Aleksey Ivanov, vice president of Evraz.