Sumitomo Metals, Kokura Renews Finish Roll Mill for Steel Bar

Sumitomo Metals, Kokura, Japanese major special steel bar maker, will renew the finish rolling mill with 3-direction rollers in the steel bar plant in order to improve the product quality and enhance the output capacity. The output capacity will increase by 10,000 tonnes to 90,000 tonnes per month at the steel bar plant. The investment totals about 2 billion yen. The firm will finish the construction in August 2009.

The steel bar plant has a rough rolling mill, a mid-rolling mill, a finish rolling mill of normal type and a finish rolling mill with 3-direction rollers. Finish rolling mill with 3-direction rollers can increase dimensional accuracy and roundness by its 3 rollers. The firm introduced the facility for the first time in Japan 20 years ago.

The demand for special steel bar is expected to expand in a long term. Users of special steel bar request higher quality products. But rolling efficiency downs for high quality. The firm will keep the output capacity and reduce the production cost by the renewal of the facility.

The firm aims the market of high-end products. The firm is increasing the production rate of special steel to over 90%, and is increasing the output of steel bar and bar-in-coil. In now, the firm is reducing the output due to decreased demand mainly for automobiles.