March 2007 — Essar Steel (Hazira) Ltd., India, a company belonging to the Essar Group, has awarded SMS Demag AG, Germany, a contract for the supply of a steelworks and a CSP^® plant for the Hazira location in the federal state of Gujarat.

The steelworks comprises a 200-tonne Conarc^® furnace unit and two dual-ladle furnaces. The twin-strand CSP plant is designed for an annual production of 2.5 million tonnes of hot strip.

For each of the plants, SMS Demag’s of supply scope comprises the engineering, manufacture of the essential mechanical components, the complete electrical and automation systems, and supervision of erection and commissioning.

Developed by SMS Demag, the Conarc process is a combination of the classical oxygen and electrical steelmaking process routes. It involves two furnace shells in which the oxygen-blowing lance is used alternately with the electrodes.

Technological equipment for the Conarc process includes two blowing lances, oxygen and carbon injectors, materials management, and the dust-collecting facility. The technology makes it possible to process any ratio of charge materials, i.e. steel scrap, hot metal and direct-reduced iron ore (DRI). This increased level of process flexibility allows the steel producer to react dynamically to fluctuations in market prices for energy and charge materials.

Essar Steel’s Conarc—SMS Demag’s fifth reference plant— will have a 200-tonne heat size of and a transformer capacity of 165 MVA. It will be largest unit employed to date for this steel production process.

The CSP plant consists of two casting machines, a roller hearth furnace with a swivel transfer car, six-stand rolling mill, a laminar strip cooling section and two downcoilers. The caster is being built as a vertical bending plant. The slab thickness can be set in a continuously variable manner between 55 and 80 mm.

Designed for strip widths from 950 to 1,680 mm and strip thicknesses from 1.0 to 25.4 mm, the CSP plant’s product range comprises carbon steels as well as pipe grades, silicon and dual-phase steels. The process is said to offer optimum conditions for the economical production of high-quality steel grades.

A later extension stage will include the possibility of integrating a third casting strand. Likewise, an additional seventh mill stand and a third coiler can later be incorporated into the finishing mill.

The complete automation is being prepared and made operational with the aid of the proven Plug & Work procedure. Plug & Work simulates the production sequence and enables the automation functions to be tested and optimized under realistic conditions prior to installation in the works.

Commissioning of all plant items is scheduled for mid-2009.

Essar Steel (Hazira) Ltd. belongs to the Essar Group.

SMS GmbH is the holding for a group of companies internationally active in plant construction and mechanical engineering relating to the processing of steel, non-ferrous metals and plastics. The group is divided into the Business Areas SMS Demag and SMS Meer under SMS metallurgy and, on the other hand, into the Business Area SMS Plastics Technology. In the year 2005 some 9250 employees worldwide generated a turnover of about EUR 2.33 billion.