Chinese steel producer Xingtai Iron and Steel Corp. has placed a contract with Siemens VAI Metals Technologies to engineer and supply key equipment for a new stainless meltshop. The meltshop, which will comprise a 50-metric-ton ladle furnace, a 50-metric-ton-capacity AOD stainless steel converter and a 4-strand billet caster, will be part of a new production facility Xingtai is building in the Hebei Province. Scheduled to start up in June 2010, the facility will enable the company to enter the stainless and specialty-steel market for long products. The billet caster will be designed to cast approximately 500,000 metric tons of stainless and specialty-steel grades per year.

Siemens will supply engineering and key components for the ladle furnace, including current-conducting electrode arms, the high-voltage electrical system, hydraulics, Level 1 and Level 2 automation and a metallurgical process model. Siemens Ltd. of China will be responsible for local manufacturing and supply of certain key components for the AOD converter and ladle furnace.