New steel plant in Iran starts operations
Chadormalu and PAMIDCO successfully producing on SMS Concast six-strand caster in Ardakan
A consortium consisting of the Iranian companies Chadormalu Mining & Industrial Co. (CMIC) and Parsland Mines & Industries Development Company (PAMIDCO), both of which hold 100 percent shares respectively in CPG Engineering & Commercial Services GmbH, erected a new steel making plant with a 170-ton electric arc furnace and a six-strand continuous caster in Ardakan, province of Yazd in central Iran.
SMS Concast, a company of the SMS group (www.sms-group.com), delivered the six-strand continuous caster. The billet caster is designed for an annual output of 1.2 million tons of billets. With a casting radius of 10.25 meters, billets can be produced on the six-strand casting lines in formats between 130 and 250 millimeters square. Chadormalu & PAMIDCO will first produce square billets in the sizes 130, 150, 180 and 200 millimeters. Considering the plant specification, semi-finished products can be produced in lengths of six or twelve meters.
The casting machine supplied by SMS Concast comes with SMS Concast’s proprietary CONVEX® mold technology. The caster was supplied with interchangeable equipment to allow maximum uptime and most efficient maintenance work. For example, mold supports, mold cartridges, foot rollers and spray rings, are easily interchangeable between the strands and format-dependent mold parts can be replaced easily and quickly. SMS Concast has fully equipped the system with Level 1 and Level 2 automation.
The cast billets are primarily meant to fulfill the requirements of the domestic industry but will also be exported to other countries. Mahmoud Nourian, Managing Director of Chadormalu, confirms: ‟The steel industry is one of the most promising sectors to boost the local economy which was long pressed by sanctions.”
Seyed Hossein Tabib, Managing Director of CPG Industrial Mining and Technical Services GmbH (the company responsible for inspecting the equipment of the project supplied from abroad), adds: ‟Iran is now on rank 14 among the world’s steel-producing countries, and produced 17.89 million tons of crude steel in 2016, an increase of eleven percent compared to 2015.”
Latif Dashtbozorgi, Managing Director of PAMIDCO, committed all his efforts to enabling quick commissioning and high-quality production of the Chadormalu steel making plant. “With our project, we will contribute to the further growth of the Iranian steel industry.”
The plant in Ardakan is operated on the basis of directly reduced iron ore, which Chadormalu provides from its own mines in the province. The rapid further processing makes it possible to produce comparatively inexpensively. The Iranian steel industry expects a significant increase in demand in the current and the coming years. In the country, the metals industry and the upstream mining industry are regarded as important future industries.