OREANDA-NEWS. A new continuous billet casting machine has been installed at TMK-Resita metallurgical works, a subsidiary of OAO TMK located in Resita, Romania.

According to the press service of TMK, in attendance at a ceremony marking the launch of the machine were Dmitriy Pumpyanskiy, Chairman of the Board of Directors of OAO TMK, Konstantin Semerikov, CEO of OAO TMK, Ioan Romulus, Executive General Director of TMK-Resita, and Adrian Popescu, President of TMK-ARTROM.

The annual production capacity of the new machine is 450,000 metric tons of high quality continuously cast billets . The machine is designed to produce 340 x 260mm bloom and round billets with cross sections of 250 and 280mm. In the second half of 2007, it is intended that the machine will be used to produce round billets with a cross section of 180mm.

TMK-Resita was acquired by TMK in March 2006 together with TMK-ARTROM pipe plant. A single production complex comprising the production of steel, billets and seamless pipes for the European market was created from the union of the two businesses. TMK-Resita’s annual production capacity at the beginning of 2007 was 380,000 metric tons of liquid steel and 350,000 metric tons of billets.