Russian steelmaker and iron ore producer Evraz Group (Evraz) has installed slitting process technology for rebar production at its subsidiary West-Siberian Steel Works (ZapSib), aiming to increase output.
Accordingly, the new slitting process technology will allow ZapSib to increase the capacity of its light section mill 250-1 by 20 percent and to produce an additional 70,000 mt of reinforcing bars in 2010. The light section mill 250-1 is expected to reach its new designed capacities for reinforcing bar production within the very near future.
The slitting process technology consists in longitudinal separation of steel billets and further rolling into two strands, thus allowing the plant to reduce the time of the rolling cycle, to increase the number of simultaneously rolled reinforcing bars from the same billet, and to reduce the energy consumption for heating and rolling. This technology is widely applied in Japan, Canada, US, Sweden and Germany.