Siderurgica Balboa, Spain, has contracted Danieli to supply a new 1.2 million tonne/year superflexible minimill. The new plant is one of the largest projects of this kind ever undertaken in Europe and will produce small and medium size long products from 5.5 diameter wire rod up to 600 mm H-beam.

The new facility of Alfonso Gallardo Group will be located in the Jerez de los Caballeros complex. The existing complex features a minimill for bars and a combined galvanizing/color coating line, both supplied by Danieli.

The minimill will feature a 1.2 million tonne/year steelmaking and continuous casting plant for billets, blooms and beam blanks as well as a 750,000 tonne/year medium section mill (RM #1) for production of up to 600-mm beams and large-size profiles. The facility will also include a 500,000 tonne/year multi-line superflexible mill (RM #2) for production of round bars, spooled bar-in-coils, wire rod coils, small and the lower range of medium sections.

The steelmaking plant will include a 130-tonne full platform split-shell EAF, 130-tonne inert-roof ladle furnace and a fume dedusting plant. A 6-strand FastCast continuous caster will produce billets up to 160 mm, blooms up to 250 mm, and beam blanks up to 610x320 mm. Danieli will also supply all meltshop auxiliaries, including water treatment plants for the meltshop and rolling mills.

RM #1 will be based on the Profile Sizing Process (PSP), the latest Danieli cost-reducing innovation, which facilitates high efficiency, high productivity and superior product quality for beam and medium-section mills. Located after a reversing breakdown stand, the PSP will be made up of a 3-stand reversing intermediate mill combined with a single-pass independent finishing sizing stand, all featuring the SCC (Stand Core Concept) super-heavy duty universal rolling stands, with automatic fast changing of rolls and guides package.

The finishing end of the mill includes a cooling bed, on-line jumbo-size straightener, cut-to-length process, automatic stacking and collecting facilities. RM #1’s product range will include 120- to 600-mm I-beams, 100- to 260-mm H-beams, 150- to 300-mm flats, up to 400-mm channels, and up to 200-mm angles.

The 18-stand superflexible RM #2 mill will feature three different outlets for the production of straight bars, spooled bar in coils and wire rod, respectively. The wire rod line will feature a 10-pass DWB high-speed finishing block and on-line heat treatment facilities. The line will also incorporate an innovative spooler line for the production of on-line water quenched rebars, twist-free-wound in ultra-compact, ultra-heavy coils to be directly fed to downstream cold processing lines without any intermediate off-line operation.

RM #2’s product range will be extremely wide, including 12- to 50-mm round bars, up to 32-mm rebars, corresponding squares/hexagons, 30- to 120-mm angles, corresponding channels and flats, 80- to 160-mm I-beams, 5.5- to 20-mm wire rod, and 8- to 32-mm spooled bars in coils weighing up to 2.3 tonnes.

Danieli Centro Combustion will supply a 180 tonne/hour walking beam reheat furnace for RM #1, and a 120 tonne/hour walking hearth reheat furnace for RM #2. Danieli Automation will supply all electricals and an advanced automation system for the entire minimill.