The Russian steelmaker Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK) has announced that following a revamp it has commissioned its two million mt capacity continuous slab caster No.7 at its main production site in Lipetsk. The new caster will produce a wide range of high quality slabs of various steel grades.
As a result of the revamp, NLMK has increased the annual capacity of its continuous slab caster No. 7 by 700,000 mt, and has raised the speed of casting by 30 percent to 1.6 mt/min. The new slab caster No. 7 also has improved designed features which enable the production of high quality slab surfaces and internal structures and the reduction of steel loss by ten percent.
The new continuous slab caster No.7 is the fourth caster commissioned at NLMK's Lipetsk site after revamping. The total annual production capacity of all continuous casters at the site has reached approximately 11.7 million mt.
The project has been implemented over 13 months jointly with Austria-based giant engineering and plantmaking company Siemens VAI within the framework of NLMK's technical upgrade program. The main objective of this program for the 2007-2011 period is to increase crude steel output at the Lipetsk production site from nine million mt to 12.4 million mt per year.