Mexican long steel producer Talleres y Aceros (Tyasa) has issued Primetals Technologies with the final acceptance certificate for a new mini-mill meltshop, the UK-based plant-building firm said on Tuesday in a statement.
The facility, constructed in the country’s Veracruz state, has an annual capacity of 1.2 million tons of crude steel.
The electric arc furnace installed at Tyasa cuts the specific conversion costs of electric steel production by about 20 percent, according to Primetals.
The furnace combines proven elements of shaft furnace technology with a new scrap charging process, an efficient preheating system, a new tilting concept for the lower shell, and an optimized tapping system, enabling tap-to-tap times of 36 minutes to be achieved, the supplier said.
The project in Mexico also covered the secondary metallurgical facilities and a combined continuous caster that casts billets and preliminary sections, which are then used as input material for the onsite long-product rolling mill.
"The new plant enables Tyasa not only to substantially increase its production capacity but also to widen its range of products," Primetals said.
Tyasa produces about 450,000 tons per year of billets in the old steel plant, which are further processed in its rolling mill to make wire and bar steels, as well as building materials such as rebar and nails.
The company’s total annual capacity for rolled products is about 700,000 tons per year.