Tata Steel has completed a major upgrade of the Hot Strip Mill at its Port Talbot steelworks in South Wales enabling it to further improve the quality of its steel products for the automotive, engineering, construction and domestic appliances market.
The upgrade was focused on the installation of a new GBP 25M ‘reversing rougher’ – a key part of the process that transforms a 23cm thick slab of steel into 2.5cm thick sheet. The reversing rougher is believed to be the most powerful in Europe, with two new 12.5MW motors, each equivalent to 17,000hp. The upgrade of the Hot Strip Mill follows investments totalling more than GBP 250M in state-of-the-art steelmaking and processing technology at the South Wales operations.
Hridayeshwar Jha, Tata Steel’s Strip Products UK Hub Director, said: “These investments have created a stronger, more efficient and more reliable platform from which we can meet the needs of our customers. We took the opportunity of this summer’s maintenance shutdown to upgrade a number of other plant areas in order to further improve production of high-value steels and their delivery to customers.”
