OREANDA-NEWS. Mechel OAO (NYSE: MTL) announces the commissioning of a new continuous casting machine at its Romanian steel plant Mechel Targoviste.

According to the press service of OJSC “Mechel”, the new unit will allow Mechel Targoviste to significantly reduce production costs and improve the quality of its long products.

The investments in the continuous caster reconstruction and infrastructure amounted to approximately US$14 million. The new machine has replaced the plant’s obsolete concaster. The unit is capable of producing billets of 120 mm х 120 mm, 140 m х 140 mm, and 150 mm х 180 mm sections from various grades of steel.

While the production of commercial billets is possible, the concaster’s output will be primarily used for further processing billets into long products at the plant. The design productivity of the new three-strand concaster is 500 thousand tonnes of billets annually.
The commissioning of the new continuous caster allows for the casting of practically all grades of the plant’s product mix, including low-alloyed and alloyed steel.

The significant reconstruction of the concaster included changing the machines’ technological axis and broadening the product mix in terms of the billet size and grade.
Implementation of the latest achievements in the areas of continuous caster design and continuous casting technology allows the plant to reduce the number of strands from four to three, while at the same time almost doubling the machine’s throughput capacity. A section for retarded cooling of the billets was constructed to produce high-carbon and alloyed steel billets. The concaster is based on state-of-the-art technological solutions and meets all manufacturing requirements.

The commissioning of the new concaster became an important stage in the program of modernization of the entire production chain’s equipment and technology at Mechel Targoviste.