The caster, designated as the No. 4 unit, represents an EUR 90 million investment and will produce steels that will be turned into rails, premium wires for the automotive industry and high-quality seamless tubes for oil and gas exploration, voestalpine said.

The caster has a capacity of 1 million tons. 

“The new continuous … allows voestalpine to immediately start manufacturing even higher purity steels with optimal surface properties. Consequently, cracks caused by extreme stresses on the rail surfaces, for example, can be prevented through the use of homogenous material structures,” the company said in a statement.