On 7 May AvestaPolarit’s Tornio Works were inaugurated, marking the end of a three-year phase in the investment project to more than double the steelmaking and rolling capacity for stainless steel at the works. The inauguration ceremony was attended by some 700 guests from all over the world. The project is the most ambitious in Outokumpu Group’s history, and by far the largest since the company first began stainless steel production in Tornio in the mid-1970s. It makes the Tornio Works the largest and most modern stainless steel facility in the world.
The investments comprise a new melting shop, the expansion of hot rolling facilities and
a new cold rolling plant. The new steel melting shop, which was commissioned in August last year and has an annual production capacity of 1 million tonnes, raises steelmaking capacity at the Group’s Tornio site to 1.65 million tonnes per year. The new cold rolling plant, known as the RAP line (for rolling, annealing and pickling), will increase the capacity of finished products from the current 550 000 tonnes to 1,200,000 tonnes, of which 750,000 tonnes is cold rolled material and 450 000 tonnes white hot bands. RAP line is a fully integrated and highly automated production unit in a 700-metre long, three-storey building. The new facility will also help the Tornio Works to expand its existing product range to a new intermediate
rolled product that is particularly well suited to a number of applications, e.g. welded tubes.
Principal equipment suppliers to this expansion are VAI, Austria (melting and casting), Chugai Ro, Japan (reheating and annealing furnace), Danieli, Italy (RAP line) and Siemens, Germany (RAP line electricity and automation) and SMS Demag, Germany (hot rolling mill expansion).
