Mexican steel producer Grupo Simec announced it will invest $600 million to build a specialty steel plant in the city of Apizaco.
The plant, which is expected to have a 600,000 mt/year capacity, will produce a variety of special bar quality (SBQ) products, from large round blooms, to large-diameter bars and wire rod. The project is expected to start-up in H2 2017.
The company said the new plant will be located near a Simec plant, which already produces 400,000 mt/year of SBQ. According to Simec, this plant produces bars with smaller diameters and supplies the automotive, energy and capital goods sectors.
Simec said the mini-mill facility will have a set of technologies from Danieli Automation, from scrap processing to steel melting, secondary refining, round billet casting, hot-rolling, on-line heat treatment of long products, in-line cold finishing bar inspection facilities as well as an advanced wire rod line. Danieli Automation was contracted to implement “full-advanced technology” for the new facility, Simec said.
Automation will also provide all electrical components and an “advanced level 1 and 2 automation system for the entire plant.”