OREANDA-NEWS. April 08, 2010. OJSC “ArcelorMittal Kryviy Rih” will launch construction of Secondary Metallurgy and Continuous Billet Casting technology in April. Construction of the CCM is a key part of the company’s modernization program as well as one of its investment obligations according to the sale and purchase agreement. This project will include construction of all related infrastructure and facilities - electrical substation, water treatment plant, de-dusting unit etc. The project capacity of the new CCM will be over 1.2 million ton of steel per year. Target date of start-up of CCM is September 2011.

Launch of the CCM will mark transfer of the enterprise to more efficient and more sustainable production with numerous technical advantages:

•Energy saving i.e. gas, water and electrical energy: 10% energy saving in steel production per ton of steel.

•Increased product quality: the ladle furnace gives the possibility to clean and alloy the liquid steel and to produce a bigger range of product qualities.

•Increasing the labor safety: less manual work and higher degree of automation ensure safer working conditions.

•Environmental friendly: 10% reduction of emission per ton of billet in steel making.

•Better yield, higher availability, higher degree of automation and maintenance friendly: 10% better yield, 90% availability.

Jean Jouet, CEO, ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih: “Building our first CCM is a true milestone in our enterprise development and an important step towards improving competitiveness of our products. It marks the start of a journey from ingot casting route to state of the art secondary metallurgy and continuous billet casting route. Worldwide today more than 80% of long products are being produced using Continuous Casting Technology. Almost all our competitors in Ukraine have switched over to this technology or are in the process of building similar facilities. As our strategy is focused on modernization and efficiency improvement, we are moving to this modern state of the art technology.”

Siemens VAI Austria and Siemens Ukraine have been chosen as principal technology suppliers and main designer to design, supply and commission the facilities due to the vast experience and high quality of their products:

• Experience on the market and strong local presence: supplied more than five secondary metallurgy & continuous casting units in Ukraine; more than 250 local engineers in Donetsk & Kiev. • Experience worldwide: track of similar technologies installed in developed and emerging markets (nearly 100 billet CCM). Currently similar projects by Siemens VAI are under execution in Russia, China, Middle East and India. • Company’s reputation as a world leader in manufacturing and supplying of environmental friendly technology and facilities. In fiscal 2009, Siemens products and solutions enabled customers to reduce their CO2 emissions by 210 million tons. • Established partnership with ArcelorMittal: supplied continuous casting machines at various units (Belgium, Spain, Kazkhstan). Big portion of the project i.e. mainly design & engineering, civil structural and technological structural will be developed and supplied locally. Siemens Ukraine will work with local contractors which will open new opportunities for local companies in Kryviy Rih and Dnipropetrovsk oblast.