North American Stainless (NAS), an Acerinox subsidiary, has recently completed negotiations with various equipment suppliers for expansion at its Kentucky factory. Voest Alpine Industrieanlagenbau GmbH & Co. (Austira) will supply NAS with a 150tns AOD converter and ladle furnace. The melt shop is expected to start up in March 2008. Melting capacity for NAS will reach 1.415 million tonnes per year with the completion of this project out of which 200,000 million tonnes per year will be for billets. NAS has entered into a contract with Sejal of Japan for the supply of its 5th Sendzimir cold rolling mill. This is a 60in wide mill with an estimated capacity of 225,000 million tonnes per year. With the addition of this mill, the cold rolling capacity of NAS will reach 846,000 million tonnes per year. NAS has also contracted with Andritz to supply its 4th annealing and pickling line for stainless steel hot rolled coils. This line will be designed for a maximum 1600mm wide strip with maximum thickness of 14mm. It will have a capacity of 1.126 million tonnes per year and the first coil is scheduled for December 2008.
