Vallourec & Sumitomo do Brasil, a joint venture between France’s Vallourec and Japan’s Sumitomo Metal Industries, has placed an order with Switzerland’s Concast for the supply of a steelworks plant, equipment for a secondary metallurgy center and a continuous caster for the manufacture of seamless tubes. The plant is scheduled to go into production in February 2011. The new facility is to be built in Jeceaba, Brazil, and will comprise an electric steel plant with ladle furnace, vacuum degassing facility and a continuous caster. It will produce liquid steel with an annual output of 1.1 million tons.
The order for the seamless-tube rolling mill went to SMS Meer, like Concast a company within the SMS Group. The ladle furnace will achieve a heating rate of approximately 5°C/min. The vacuum degassing facility is of twin-tank design and equipped with a mechanical pump.