Gulf Construction Online - Emirates Steel unveils heavy section mill

UAE Focus

Emirates Steel’s heavy section mill ... region’s first.

Emirates Steel unveils heavy section mill

01 February 2012

EMIRATES Steel has commissioned the region’s first heavy section mill at a cost of around $650 million. The steelmaker said it can now produce large-size sections, beams, columns and sheet piles.

“This is the latest achievement in the completion of the expansion programme at our integrated complex in Musaffah,” said Suhail Al Ameri, chairman of Emirates Steel. “In support of Abu Dhabi’s economic Vision 2030, our expansion has been designed to give Emirates Steel a competitive advantage over its international competitors by giving it better access to local energy resources and utilising state-of-the-art technologies.”

“Now that Phase 2B is complete, we will be the only producer of jumbo and heavy sections in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region and will be able to offer drastically-reduced lead times and an improved product offering in terms of piece count and cut-to-length services,” he added.

The company had launched in January 2006 a two-phased expansion programme worth $2.45 billion. Phase One was completed in June 2009, Phase 2A in March 2011 and Phase 2B in December 2011. The new heavy section mill will be integrated with the second 1.4-million-tonnes-per-year (tpy) steel meltshop and the associated direct reduction plant already started successfully in 2010.

Emirates Steel’s Phase 2A, which consists of a 1.6 million tpy direct reduction plant (DRP) and a 1.4 million tpy steel making plant (SMP), has significantly increased the company’s direct reduced iron (DRI) capacity to 3.2 million tpy and steelmaking capacity to 2.8 million. This elevated Emirates Steel into one of the largest DRI producers in the Middle East region.

Phase Two DRP and SMP, which are twin plants of Phase One assets, were commissioned on schedule in March 2011, thereby significantly reducing the associated technology and construction risks and providing significant synergies to the company in terms of the learning curve.

Cold commissioning of both plants had commenced in October 2010. Constructed by Italy’s Danieli, the Emirates Steel heavy section mill will produce parallel-flange beams, columns and bearing piles with up to 1,016 mm web depth and 419 flange width, up to 430 mm parallel flange channels, 250 mm angles, 750 mm U-sheet piles and 630 mm Z-sheet piles using 350 by 220 mm conticast blooms and up to 1,050 by 460 by 120 mm beam blanks as starting material.

The plant’s new facilities together with its planned further expansions will see Emirates Steel increase its production to around 6.5 million tpy within the next four years. More than 30 per cent of the project team members, who worked on the two-phased expansion, were UAE engineers and technicians.

According to Steel Business Briefing, demand for medium and heavy sections in the Middle East is forecast to reach 4.3 million tonnes this year, with Saudi Arabia and the UAE being the biggest consumers. Demand is currently met by imports mainly from China, Korea and Eastern Europe.