Mechel Announces Commissioning of Steel Processing Plant

Mechel OAO has commissioned an integrated steel processing facility (ladle furnace) #3 that is the second technological part of the continuous casting machine #4 complex project at the oxygen-converter shop of its Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant OAO subsidiary.

The commissioned ladle furnace #3 is a system of devices and units which provides integrated steel processing and allows reaching the exact chemical composition, to conduct temperature correction and remove nonmetallic inclusions which helps to improve the quality of metal. The equipment is mainly supplied by Danieli. The ladle furnace.

The furnace is expected to process about 1.2 million metric tons of steel per year.

Increase in steel processing would enable to raise continuous caster efficiency at the continuous casting machine #4 in the oxygen-converter shop up to 120,000 metric tons per year.

The ladle furnace #3 is implemented within the second part of the continuous casting machine No.4 complex project which is one of the major investment projects of the first stage of the plant's technical re-equipment program. It is aimed to increase production efficiency at Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant by reducing steel, ferroalloy and power consumption per ton of casting and significant improve in quality of the final output -- rolled products and hardware.