The Russian steel producer Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works (MMK) has announced that the order books for its plate rolling mill 5000 are 100 percent full, with the mill's output increasing in January 2011 to 127,000 mt from 112,000 mt in December 2010. The mill's full capacity is estimated at 1.5 million tons per year.
"MMK's strategy is aimed at creating a state-of-the-art production complex and diversifying into new high value-added (HVA) products, primarily for the Russian market. The plate mill 5000 built at MMK is the largest scale project implemented in the Russian steel sector in the past decade," MMK chairman Victor Rashnikov commented.
Commissioned in the summer of 2009, MMK's plate rolling mill 5000 makes use of high- and low-temperature rolling technologies. It is capable of producing plate of different gauge and width meeting the most stringent requirements set by large-diameter pipe manufacturers.
The key customers of MMK's plate mill 5000 include such Russian pipe producers as ChTPZ, TMK's subsidiary Volzhsky Pipe Plant, OMK's subsidiary Vyksa Steel Works, as well as a number of domestic mechanical engineering and shipbuilding companies and boiler manufacturers.