Republic Engineered Products, Inc. announced it will invest $12.5 million at its Canton operation to install state-of-the-art equipment for producing bottom-poured ingots. With the upgrade the company expects to produce up to 200,000 tons of bottom-poured ingots annually for both domestic and export customers in the open-die forging, seamless rolled ring and electrode markets. The new equipment is expected to be operational in the third quarter of 2008.
The facility will initially produce 24-, 29- and 37-inch round ingots, with future plans to expand to 20- through 72-inch rounds weighing up to 70,000 pounds. Steel for the new bottom-poured ingot operation will be produced in 220-ton heats in the Canton facility’s upgraded electric arc furnace meltshop and refined in the facility’s new ladle-refining and vacuum-degassing equipment.