OREANDA-NEWS. EVRAZ started the ball mill construction project at EVRAZ NTMK in Nizhny Tagil, Russia. Production launch is scheduled for 2017, while the total investments are estimated at RUB 1 bln.

The annual production capacity of the new mill will be 135 thousand tonnes. The product offering will feature steel grinding balls with diameters ranging from 80 to 130 mm; they will be hot-rolled from continuously cast vacuum-treated ingots. The project envisages production of larger balls of superior hardness with wear resistance and surface hardness in line with the best imported comparables.

"With the new mill in place, we will make a breakthrough to the new levels of quality and increase the total output by 30%", said Aleksey Ivanov, EVRAZ's Vice-president, Head of the Steel Division. "Machines and equipment for ore-processing are getting more sophisticated while the requirements from ore processors - more and more demanding, so we are trying hard to keep pace with them. Broadening the range of products we offer and improving their characteristics will help us strengthen our foothold in the domestic market and in the CIS countries".

EVRAZ is the biggest player in the steel grinding balls market in Russia and CIS; in 2013, it controlled a 55% and 17% share in those markets, respectively. Over the year, EVRAZ NTMK and EVRAZ ZSMK produced more than 230 thousand tonnes of balls. Steel grinding balls with a diameter of 40, 60, 80, 100 and 120 mm are used for grinding ferrous and non-ferrous ores at processing facilities; 40 to 60 mm balls are also widely demanded by cement makers.