News & Press Releases

In June 2020, Primetals Technologies successfully completed the online commissioning of the new software for optimizing the Level 2 process automation for the CCM1 continuous caster at Outokumpu’s plant in Tornio, Finland. The remote commissioning used empirical values gained from commissioning the similar CCM2 continuous caster at the same location in December 2019. As well as upgrading the process optimization software for the CCM2, Primetals Technologies also installed a TPQC (Through-Process Quality Control) caster system, which records all the quality data of the entire production process in a long-term archive.

Primetals Technologies has successfully revamped electrics and automation systems at the Presidente Vargas Steelworks of Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN) in Volta Redonda, Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil. The electrics and automation systems of a RH degassing plant, a ladle furnace and the common alloy system were replaced with new versions. The RH plant and the ladle furnace were brought back into operation within only five months of order signing.

In September 2020, the Steel Division of voestalpine, an international steel and technology corporation, awarded Primetals Technologies an order to modernize the basic automation systems of the continuous annealing line 1 (KGL1) in the Linz plant in Austria. The replacement of the now obsolete systems will improve the operational safety and availability of the annealing plant as well as increase personal safety. All the sequence controllers will be modernized, and the KGL1 safety concept will be implemented. The project processing is especially challenging because work can only be executed during the ten- to twelve-day plant shutdowns which only take place about every six months.

In July 2020, EVRAZ NTMK, a Russian steel producer, awarded Primetals Technologies an order to upgrade process optimization of the four BOF converters in its Nizhnij Tagil plant in Russia. The intelligent software from Primetals Technologies will replace the existing Level 2. Currently, the converter operators frequently have to intervene manually. The new process optimization solution offers dynamic, physical models with greater computational accuracy, and will allow improved converter operation, providing optimal converter production control across all shifts. The standardized mode of operation is expected to be accompanied by a reduction in the quantities of additives used.

Primetals Technologies has received the final acceptance certificate (FAC) for two semi-automatic horizontal temperature and sample-taking manipulator systems installed at the two BOF converters at the steel plant of Dillinger Hütte (AG der Dillinger Hüttenwerke) in Germany. The aims of this modernization project were to improve operational safety by automating the processes and thus reducing physical presence of operators in potentially hazardous environment as well as to improve availability – up to 98% in three-shift operation and reproducibility of temperature measurements and sample taking. Previously, temperature measurement and sample taking at the two 190-ton-converters were conducted manually.