The Russian steelmaker Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK) is to make a Ruble 22.9 billion (approx. $875 million) investment to expand production capacity at its Ekaterinburg-based subsidiary Verkh-Isetsky Iron and Steel Works (VIZ-Stal), the second-largest Russian producer of grain-oriented electrical steel.
Within the scope of the investment, NLMK is to construct at VIZ-Stal a reversible rolling mill, reforming installations, high temperature annealing furnaces, and is to reconstruct the plant's thermal units.
The project will allow VIZ-Stal to increase its production of electrical steel to 260,000 mt by 2015 and to 280,000 mt by the end of 2020. It will also enable VIZ-Stal to raise its output of new high permeability (Hi-B) steel grade (up to 60 percent of production) for new types of transformers.
The investment project also includes the expansion of the production of electrical steel with increased qualitative parameters and deep service treatment at VIZ-Stal's Verkh-Isetsky Metallurgical Plant (VIZ). VIZ is specialized in the production of enameled products.