Russian steelmaker NLMK has announced that it has begun hot-testing of eight new bell-type annealing furnace stands at its rolling operations at the Lipetsk site. At the same time, an additional 15 new stands are being installed, with hot-testing planned to begin in the second half of 2015.
Bell-type furnaces are used to thermally treat low-carbon steel after cold rolling. The new equipment, which replaces obsolete furnaces, employs high convection hydrogen annealing technology to ensure superior durability, ductility and other mechanical properties compared to low convection nitrogen annealing.
Widening the use of this technology will enable the company to increase production of cold rolled steel with premium quality surface finishing by 30 percent.
The total cost of the two construction stages (23 new bell-type furnace stands) will be approximately RUB 1.2 billion ($28.08 million).