Russian steelmaking company Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK) has announced that its Yekaterinburg-based subsidiary VIZ-Stal has completed the construction of eight high temperature annealing furnaces for transformer steel production, which are expected to be launched in December.
Accordingly, the new facilities, will improve the electromagnetic properties of transformer steel, including such parameters as grade, flatness, categorizing, and will also allow VIZ-Stal to halve power consumption at this stage of the production process.
The project, implemented as a part of NLMK's technical upgrade program, has a total value of Ruble 940 million (about $31 million), and was constructed in association with German-based company LOI Thermprocess.
NLMK's technical upgrade program, launched in 2007 for the period up to 2015, includes 10 investment projects on construction of new lines and reconstruction of existing ones, which will renew 50 percent of VIZ-Stal's equipment. The reconstruction at VIZ-Stal is aimed at mastering a new product type, i.e., high permeability steel, as well at improving product quality and increasing production efficiency.