Russian Steel Firm Commissions Shear Press

Mechel OAO has commissioned and installed a shearing press at its electric arc furnace shop at its Romanian steel plant. The shear is the second the company has installed at the plant; the first shear was installed in 2004. Mechel is a mining and metals company based in Russia. The company produces coal, iron ore, nickel, steel, rolled products and other materials.

The new shearing press, manufactured by Sierra, is a modern, fully automated unit. Depending on the metal used for reprocessing, its production capacity ranges from 15 to 22 metric tons per hour with a cutting force of 700 metric tons. The cost of the project is around 1 million euros (around US$1.36 million), and the company expects the payback period for the new equipment to be around five months.

With the new continuous caster put into operation this year and modernization of the mills, the commissioning of the second shearing press will allow the plant to increase metal scrap density with a concurrent reduction of scrap returns. During the EAF No. 2 modernization last year, annual productivity was increased to 500,000 metric tons.

The company plans to significantly reduce per-metric-ton fixed costs with a complex of technical measures aimed at further modernization of EAF No. 2, including modernization of the transformer and a change of the furnace's operating charging baskets and steel teeming ladles, and to reach annual capacity of 600,000 next year.