The Russian steel producer Evraz Group has announced that by early 2011 it plans to finish the construction of a new ladle furnace, the fourth production complex for the secondary treatment of steel before casting, at the converter shop of its subsidiary Nizhny Tagil Iron and Steel Works (NTMK). The cost of the project amounts to €10 million.
The construction of the ladle furnace No. 4, which will be supplied by the Italian producer of steelmaking machinery and plants, Danieli, will be started in December 2010 and will last about two months. The equipment installation will be carried out in conditions of continuous steelmaking.
The additional ladle furnace will allow NTMK to increase its secondary treatment capacities and to reduce the share of common grade slabs produced in its concaster No. 4 by concentrating on the output of premium grade slabs, which are used by pipemakers for the production of API standard oil pipes. This type of product is seeing increased demand both in Russia and in foreign markets.
The construction of the new ladle furnace is being implemented within the framework of the project for the reconstruction of steelmaking facilities at NTMK. The commissioning of the ladle furnace No. 4, along with the reconstruction of NTMK's continuous billet caster No. 3 and of its oxygen converter No. 4, will increase the production capacity of the plant's converter shop from 4 million mt to 4.5 million mt of steel per year, as well as improve the quality of its products.
As SteelOrbis previously reported, in November 2009 Evraz placed a €30 million order with Austria-based giant engineering and plantmaking company Siemens VAI for the reconstruction of the continuous billet caster No. 3 at NTMK, in order to increase its capacities from 700,000 mt to one million mt. The reconstruction is planned to be finished in December 2010. At the same time, Siemens VAI will carry out the upgrading of NTMK's converter No. 4.