Major Russian steel producer NLMK Group has announced that it has started production using eight new bell-type annealing furnace stands.
Bell-type furnaces are used for heat treatment of low-carbon steel after cold rolling. The new equipment operates with high-convection hydrogen annealing technology, which increases the productivity of the furnaces and reduces energy consumption compared to low-convection nitrogen annealing.
The use of this technology will allow the company to increase the production of cold rolled steel with high quality surface finishes by 30 percent. Currently, work on the installation of 15 more similar stands is underway, with hot testing scheduled to begin in the second half of 2015. The total investment for the 23 new stands will amount to about RUB 1.2 billion ($19.23 million).