Siemens VAI Metals Technologies received an order from the Ukrainian-based scrap trader Euro Finance Ltd. for supply of a minimill at a new production facility in Byelaya Tserkov near Kiev.
The project comprises an electric arc furnace (EAF), ladle furnace, billet caster, long-product rolling mill in addition to auxiliary facilities. With a production capacity of 1.8 million tonnes per year, the minimill will enable the company to expand its production and marketing activities for high-quality billets and long products.
Euro Finance Ltd., the leading scrap supplier in the Ukraine, owns a network of scrap-collection and processing companies in the Ukraine and Russia, in addition to companies in Switzerland and the U.K. Its main business activities focus on the purchase, preparation and sale of steel scrap to steel producers in the Ukraine as well as to foreign companies. High scrap export taxes prompted the company to build a new minimill for the production and sale of billets and rolled products to take advantage of new business opportunities.
Siemens VAI Metals Technologies will provide the engineering and supply of process equipment for the new minimill, including a 120-ton-capacity Simetal Ultimate EAF with a tapping weight of 120 tonnes, a twin-station 120-tonne ladle furnace, an eight-strand billet caster, and a wire-rod and bar rolling mill. The supply also includes an alloying system, dedusting system, cranes and other mobile equipment, as well as laboratories and related electrical and automation systems. Siemens will also provide advisory services for erection, start-up and commissioning.
The Simetal Ultimate EAF will be a high-performance furnace capable of producing 1.8 million tonnes of low- to medium-carbon, low-alloyed and alloyed steel grades. Single-bucket charging will shorten tap-to-tap times by several minutes, and the furnace will also be equipped with refining combined burners, oxy-gas burners and post-combustion lances to accelerate initial melting and enable post-combustion. The twin-station ladle furnace with 120-tonne-capacity vessels will serve for the fine adjustment of the steel composition as well as to adapt final temperature as required for casting.
The 18-bin alloying system will supply the EAF, the ladle during tapping, and the ladle furnace. The treatment capacity of the dedusting plant will approximately 1,720,000 Nm3 per hour and the clean-gas dust content will be less than 10 mg/Nm3. The dedusting system will exhaust and cleanse the primary offgas from the EAF (270,000 Nm3/hour) as well as secondary fumes generated during EAF melting, tapping, charging and deslagging. Emissions from the ladle furnace, material-handling system and other auxiliary systems will also be extracted and treated.
The eight-strand billet caster will be capable of casting 1.8 million tonnes of billets per year in 125- and 150-millimeter-square formats. Each strand will be equipped with Dynaflex oscillators for flexible adjustment of the mold-oscillation parameters as well as with Diamold high-speed casting molds. Level 1 and Level 2 process optimization packages will also be supplied.
The continuous rolling-mill train with a nominal rolling capacity of 800,000 tonnes per year will be a combined wire-rod and bar rolling mill. It will comprise ten monoblock stands for rolling wire-rod at speeds of 105 meters/second to diameters of 5 to 16 millimeters, and 20 stands for bar rolling at speeds of 18 meters/second. The rolled bars will comprise rounds with diameters of 10 to 40 millimeters, rebars with diameters from 8 to 40 millimeters, and square bars with diameters between 10 and 40 millimeters.
The new minimill is scheduled to go into operation in mid-2011.
The Siemens Industry Sector (Erlangen, Germany) is a leading supplier of production, transportation and building systems. The Sector comprises six Divisions: Building Technologies, Industry Automation, Industry Solutions, Mobility, Drive Technologies and Osram. In fiscal 2007 (ended September 30), Siemens Industry generated sales of approximately EUR40 billion (pro forma, unconsolidated) with around 209,000 employees worldwide.
With the business activities of Siemens VAI Metal Technologies (Linz, Austria), Siemens Water Technologies (Warrendale, Pa.), and Industry Technologies (Erlangen, Germany), the Siemens Industry Solutions Division (Erlangen, Germany) is one of the world's leading solution and service providers for industrial and infrastructure facilities. Using its own products, systems and process technologies, Industry Solutions develops and builds plants for end customers, commissions them and provides support during their entire life cycle.