Mechel OAO, a leading Russian mining and metals companies, launched the universal rolling mill at Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev launched the mill in an official ceremony.
The company’s and the plant’s management and other officials attended the ceremony.
The universal rolling mill is Russia’s first complex universal producer of high-quality 12.5m to 100m long structural shapes and rails. The mill complex includes all necessary technological equipment and uses state-of-the-art rolling, correction, processing and quality control technologies. The mill’s capacity is up to 1.1Mt of finished product a year. Investment in the project totalled some USD 715M.
Italy’s Danieli was the supplier for the mill and China’s Minmetals the mill’s primary contractor. The mill’s active construction phase took two years. The mill’s primary building is 1.5km long, with the longest technological line for rail production 3.5km long. The use of advanced technologies during the mill’s construction is expected to reduce the plant’s negative impact on the environment due to old equipment being taken out of commission and new cleansing equipment installed.
The rails produced at the mill are due to be supplied to Russian Railways OAO as part of the Development Strategy for Russian Railway Transport until 2030, approved by the Russian government and including modernisation and construction of new railways all over the country. The new rails will be superior to their foreign analogues on several key counts, due to the climatic and other specifics of rail exploitation in Russia, such as resistance to low temperatures, high wear and contact resistance.
