March 14, 2006 — Nucor Steel awarded the Siemens Group Industrial Solutions and Services (I&S) an order to engineer and supply billet-caster equipment for its Birmingham, Ala., facility.

At Nucor’s Birmingham facility, steel is cast in a 3-strand billet caster then rolled in the bar mill. In order to eliminate its current need for rotating ladles to fill the tundishes, the facility purchased new ladles with new nozzle-pouring positions. The change requires that the tundishes and tundish cars be extended.

Voest-Alpine Industries, Inc., Pittsburgh, an I&S company, will implement the project, supplying two new tundish cars and engineering the required structural modifications for the plant.

Project completion is scheduled for late March, 2006.

With operating facilities in 15 states, Nucor Corp. is one of the largest steel producers in the United States. The Nucor Bar Mill Group, comprised of ten bar mills located in ten states, produces approximately 6.7 million tons of steel products each year. Nucor’s Birmingham facility (formerly a Birmingham Steel facility) produces and sells up to 600,000 tons of rebar (concrete reinforcing bar) per year to consumers throughout the southeastern USA for use in the construction industry.

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 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 the electrical and technical products of other Siemens Groups 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.