Sheffield Steel Corp. has awarded the Siemens Group Industrial Solutions and Services (I&S) a contract for a new 85-ton ladle furnace.

Siemens’ scope of supply comprises engineering, supply, and turnkey installation of the ladle furnace. The project scope also includes the supply of auxiliary equipment, including a Level 2 process-optimization system, ladle-furnace transformer, ladle turret, alloy- and lime-addition system, fume exhaust system and a water-treatment facility.

The contract will be implemented by I&S daughter company Voest-Alpine Industries, Inc., Pittsburgh. SEGA Inc., Kansas, will serve as the owner's engineer and will provide project management support.

With the new ladle furnace, Sheffield Steel intends to improve meltshop logistics as well as the quality of the steel produced. The new unit will be used to treat up to 750,000 tons of a full range of carbon and low-alloy steel grades. Start-up is scheduled for the Fall of 2006.

Headquartered in Oklahoma, Sheffield Steel is a leading regional minimill producer capable of producing 650,000 tons of steel per year. The company supplies hot-rolled steel bar products, concrete reinforcing bar, fabricated products (such as fence posts, railroad track spikes and fabricated and epoxy-coated rebar for highway and construction purposes) and various types of billets which are converted to finished products elsewhere. Sheffield Steel’s products are used for numerous commercial, industrial and agricultural applications such as for the manufacture of automotive parts, farm equipment, conveyor assemblies, pole-line hardware, wrenches and construction machinery.

VAI, 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, 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 Group "Industrial Solutions and Services" (I&S) is the integrator of Siemens systems and solutions for industrial and infrastructure facilities and a global service provider for the plant and projects business covering planning, installation, operation and their entire life cycle. I&S uses the electrical and technical products of the company groups to enhance productivity and to improve the competitiveness of companies in the sectors of metallurgy, water treatment, pulp and paper, oil and gas, marine engineering, open-cast mining, intelligent traffic systems and industrial services. In the fiscal year 2004 (to September 30), I&S employed a total of 30,000 people worldwide and achieved a total sales volume of EUR 4.290 billion.