Earlier this month, Industrial Heating reported that NLMK Group signed an agreement for the purchase of the core process equipment for the construction of a new walking-beam reheating furnace. Tenova Inc. has been contracted to design and supply the 395-metric-ton/hour furnace for reheating slabs at NLMK’s plant in Sharon, Pa. Scheduled for start-up in 2018, the fuel-efficient furnace will be equipped with Tenova’s Flexytech low-NOx burners. Tenova will also design and supply the complete control and automation package, which features an advanced thermal-model-based Level 2 control system. The furnace’s size will make it one of the largest walking-beam furnaces in North America.

In other news, Tenova received the final acceptance certificate for its state-of-the-art aluminum automotive finishing line at Novelis’ Nachterstedt plant in Germany at the end of 2016. Industrial Heating first reported on this line in November 2015. Located adjacent to Novelis’ existing rolling mill and aluminum recycling center, the $85 million investment will increase annual production capacity by 120,000 metric tons of automotive sheet. The line is processing automotive aluminum coils with a thickness range of 0.7-2.7 mm and a width range of 800-2,100 mm. Its process speed is 80 m/min. The finishing line was built to serve materials to automakers such as Jaguar Land Rover and BMW.