The Siemens Industrial Solutions and Services Group (I&S) has received an order from Wuyang Iron and Steel Co., China, to equip a new single-strand continuous slab-casting plant with electrical systems.

Wuyang Iron and Steel Co., which belongs to the Hanstell Group Co., operates a plant in Wugang city for the production of heavy plate. Its annual capacity up to now has been 1.2 million tonnes. Due to growing demand in China, Wuyang is now building a new continuous casting plant where slabs of widths between 1.3 and 2.5 meters can be produced. The capacity of the new plant will amount to around 1.1 million tonnes per year of primarily micro-alloyed steels and steels with low or medium carbon content.

Siemens will supply the electrical and technological components for the new plant. This includes controlled drives, the basic and process automation (with HMI) and also technological controllers. The equipment is part of the "Siroll CA" concept for continuous casting plants. Simatic S7 PLCs will be used for the automation.

The order also includes process infrastructure such as process-data and field-bus networks. In addition, Siemens is responsible for project management, for engineering and for the manufacture of all cabinets, as well as for supervision, installation and commissioning. Siemens

China will have the lead of the project, whereas technological process functions will be implemented in collaboration with the Siemens I&S specialists from Erlangen. The mechanical parts of the plant will be supplied by Chinese engineering companies.

The order is worth EUR 3 million and commissioning is scheduled for mid-2006.