ArcelorMittal Frýdek-Místek has commissioned new lines for grain oriented electrical steel production that will more than double the facility’s current annual production rate. The upgrade—an investment of CZK 2.5 billion—features new high-temperature annealing furnaces, a thermal straightening line, and a new coating line.
The facility will use its five new covered electric furnaces, which were supplied by LOI of Germany, to perform high-temperature annealing of coils. The additional furnaces will expand the facility’s existing production capacity by 20,000 tons.
The upgrade also included the installation of a new thermal straightening line Ingetaem and a coating line supplied by Tenova of Italy. “In the course of the year 2008 we have invested some CZK 650 thousand in these facilities”, commented the company director, Tomáš Mischinger.
Mischinger said the company also is planning to reconstruct its decarburizing line as the second stage of it upgrade. The new facility will allow production of top-quality transformer plates in the future. He said that the company would also add two high-temperature annealing furnaces, a slitting line, and a packing center that will help to secure more orders for higher-quality strips. The company also is planning to reconstruct and modernize parts of its rolling stand to facilitate rolling of high-quality thin sheets.
In addition to investments in production equipment, the upgrade also included investments in the waste processing system, including some CZK 60 million in wastewater treatment that will help to mitigate environmental impact. The steel rollers in Frýdek-Místek also invested in the switch station to provide for increased power input for the newly installed lines.
The upgrades will allow the facility to more than double its current annual production rate of 22,000 tonnes of electric sheets production. The company expects that its capacity will reach 46,600 tonnes in 2009, and plans a rapid increase in the following year up to 75,000 tonnes. “We are also going to improve our products quality significantly,” said Mischinger.
There are currently 13 producers of transformer sheets in the world. In Europe, the steel companies able to produce this demanding product are located in Poland, Germany, Russia and Great Britain. “Increasing of our production capacity and higher quality of sheets will allow us to address more demanding customers manufacturing more effective transformers. We are expecting higher exports to Turkey, India, Italy and USA“, concluded Mischinger.
ArcelorMittal Frýdek-Místek belongs to the biggest Czech steel group ArcelorMittal Ostrava. In the year 2008 the company generated profit of CZK 530.5 million (before taxation) which represented year-to-year growth by 28%. The profit after taxation was CZK 416 million. Revenues from sales of products and services grew from the last year’s CZK 3 billion to CZK 3.5 billion. Year-to-year increase of value added expressing the company performance increased by CZK 131 million to CZK 866 million. The total production and sales of sheets in 2007 was 143,000 tonnes (21,633 tonnes of electric sheets), while in the previous year it was just 138,000 tonnes (15,100 tonnes of electric sheets). The company’s current headcount is 744 employees.