Sep. 2006 — The Italian steel producer Acciaieria Arvedi SpA has placed an order with VAI, a division of the Siemens Group Industrial Solutions and Services (I&S), for the supply and installation of the world’s first Arvedi ESP — Endless Strip Production — plant.

Arvedi’s new ESP line will consist of four main plant sections that will be built and linked with the existing steel mill at the Cremona site. The first section will consist of a thin-slab caster with liquid core reduction and in-line rolling by 3-high reduction stands at the exit of the casting machine. In the second section, the intermediate strip will be equalized in an induction furnace. The third section, comprised of a 5-stand, 4-high finishing mill and cooling line, is designed to enable the rolling of strip in thicknesses from 12.0 to below 1.0 mm at strip widths up to a maximum of 1570 mm. The fourth section consists of a high-speed flying shear and three downcoilers.

The Arvedi ESP project includes the engineering, supply and installation of the thin-slab casting machine, the high-reduction mill, a pendulum shear, inductive equalization-heating furnace, the finishing mill, cooling line, high-speed flying shear, downcoilers, electrics and automation in addition to integration and auxiliary facilities. A newly established joint venture engineering company — Cremona Engineering srl — will be responsible for the coordination of all activities related to the implementation of this project.

Arvedi ESP’s highly compact (190-meter) line arrangement translates to lower investment expenditures compared with conventional thin-slab casting and direct-rolling plants. The line's capability to produce thin hot-rolled strip gauges to below 1.0 mm helps to avoid subsequent cold-rolling for many strip applications, thus resulting in significant operational cost savings. The endless rolling operations will help the facility produce strip with uniform and repeatable mechanical properties along the entire strip width and length. The fully integrated production facility will incorporate advanced technological packages to help ensure overall plant reliability, superior products and a high line output.

The Arvedi ESP Line is scheduled for start-up in 2008.

Acciaieria Arvedi, in operation since 1992, is Europe's first and the world's second mini-mill for the manufacture of flat-rolled carbon steel and represents a new system of steelmaking with lower energy costs and greater compatibility with the environment than conventional plants. Production and sales of processed steel in 2006 is expected to amount to 1.15 million tonnes and over EUR 600 million. The manufacturing process based on the ISP (In-line Strip Production) process, the forerunner of the Arvedi ESP process, allows liquid steel from the meltshop to be transformed into ultra-thin hot-rolled quality steel coils at competitive costs in a single, extremely compact and highly flexible cycle. Thanks to their precision and surface characteristics, its products can replace cold-rolled steel for many applications.

The Arvedi Group, the core business of which is composed of steelmaking activities ranging from flat rolled carbon steel production and processing to carbon and stainless steel welded tube production and precision rolling of stainless steel strip, has overall annual volumes of more than 1.5 million tonnes of high quality products for the most demanding markets with 1600 employees and a consolidated turnover of about EUR 1 billion.

The VAI group, a division of the Siemens Group Industrial Solutions and Services (I&S), is one of the world's leading engineering and plant-building companies for the iron and steel industry as well as for the flat-product-rolling sector of the aluminum industry. VAI, derived from the company Voest-Alpine Industrieanlagenbau, Linz/Austria, provides a comprehensive range of supplies and services for all related technological processes and integrated automation solutions for the entire life-cycle of metallurgical plants.

The Siemens Industrial Solutions and Services Group (I&S) is the integrator of systems and solutions for industrial and infrastructure facilities and global service provider for the plant and projects business covering planning, installation, operation and the entire life cycle. I&S uses its own products and systems and process technologies in order to enhance productivity and improve competitiveness of companies in the sectors of metallurgy, water treatment, pulp and paper, oil and gas, marine engineering, open-cast mining, airport logistics, postal automation, intelligent traffic systems and industrial services. In fiscal 2005 (to September 30) I&S employed a total of 31,700 people worldwide and achieved total sales of EUR 5.390 billion.