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SMS Siemag to Deliver Hot and Cold Rolling Complex to Ma’aden-Alcoa

12/17/2010 - Ma’aden-Alcoa has placed an order with SMS Siemag for the supply of a complete integrated hot and cold rolling complex for aluminum flat products, including the electrical and automation package. The mills are expected to commence operation at the end of 2012 in Ras Az Zawr, Saudi Arabia.

Ma’aden-Alcoa has placed an order with SMS Siemag for the supply of a complete integrated hot and cold rolling complex for aluminum flat products, including the electrical and automation package.
 
The greenfield project is being implemented in Ras Az Zawr, Saudi Arabia. The annual capacity of the integrated rolling complex is around 400,000 tonnes of aluminum strip for the manufacture of beverage cans. The hot and cold rolling mills are expected to commence operation at the end of 2012.
 
SMS Siemag is supplying the complete roughing and finishing mills for the hot rolling mill. The roughing mill comprises a four-high roughing stand that rolls down, in reversing operation, the incoming aluminum ingots of thickness up to 635 mm and weight up to 32.5 tonnes. The roughing mill also includes one heavy and one light hydraulic crop shear for intermediate cropping and for removing the head and tail ends from the roughed ingot.
 
The four-stand finishing mill in four-high design rolls the roughed ingot, which has an entry thickness of around 30 mm, down to a final gage of 2 to 7 mm in a single pass. In the exit section of the finishing mill, the finished strip is side-trimmed and then taken up by a hot-strip coiler with belt wrapper.
 
SMS Siemag is also supplying the complete cold rolling mill with coil preparation station in the entry section and an offline strip inspection facility in the exit section. The four-stand tandem mill in four-high design rolls the incoming aluminum hot strip, having a maximum width of 2100 mm, down to minimum final gages of 0.15 mm. The tandem mill is equipped with actuators comprising hydraulic adjustment, positive and negative work-roll bending and CVC® plus technology.
 
A later expansion stage of the works will make it possible to change over to fully continuous mill operation, according to SMS Siemag, through the retrofitting of various plant components such as a double pay-off reel, welding machine, strip accumulator, and carrousel reel.
 
Both the hot rolling mill and the tandem cold mill are equipped with all open and closed-loop control systems. In both mills, the Alu-Control automation system, which is part of SMS Siemag's X-Pact® electrical and automation package, covers the processes from level 0 through to level 2.
 
Ma’aden-Alcoa is a joint venture of the U.S. aluminum manufacturer Alcoa Inc. and the Saudi Arabian mining company Ma'aden.
 
SMS Siemag AG is a company of the SMS group, which is, under the roof of SMS Holding GmbH, a group of companies internationally active in plant construction and mechanical engineering for the steel and nonferrous metals industry. It consists of the two business areas, SMS Siemag and SMS Meer. In 2010, about 9000 employees worldwide generated a turnover of EUR 3.1 billion.