Nakayama Steel Works to Improve Hot Coil Productivity

Nakayama Steel Works will refresh hot strip mill for 6.5 billion yen to reduce cost and to improve quality. The Osaka based steel mill will add a reheat furnace and coil box. The firm starts the new furnace in summer of 2007 and stops the operation of existing reheat furnace. The firm will roll hot coil for Nippon Steel. Nakayama Steel also converts the slab caster for 3.8 billion yen to produce wider and thicker slab in order to expand the output capacity of thinner coil. Nakayama Steel produces at around 140,000 tonnes per month or annual 1.6-1.7 million tonnes of steel products including hot coil, plate, bar and rod. The hot strip mill produces 80,000-90,000 tonnes per month including plate. The firm tries to reduce cost and to shift to higher-valued products through the capital expenditure under the new 3-year plan starting April. The firm plans conversion of hot rolling mill to expand the output of thinner coil and the original hot rolled steel with ultra fine grain, Nakayama Fine Grain along with better productivity. The firm adds new reheat furnace, which has 41 meters of length compared with 29 m of existing furnace, in the hot rolling line. The new furnace enables to improve surface quality without scale along with better edge quality. The firm starts the conversion work as early as in the year starting new furnace in summer of 2007. The firm also adds coil box to the hot rolling line to improve the productivity and production cost. The firm also improves the slab caster to increase the output capacity of thinner coil at the hot strip mill. With the conversion, the caster can produce slab with up to 1,350 millimeters width compared with current 800 mm. The firm will finish the conversion in summer of 2007.