GPH Ispat Ltd., a manufacturer of long products based in Chittagong, Bangladesh, has commissioned Primetals Technologies Ltd. (London, U.K.; www.primetals.com) to supply a minimill with a total annual capacity of 815,000 metric tons (m.t.) of finished products and billets. The order includes an EAF Quantum electric arc furnace, a ladle furnace, a three-strand, high-speed continuous billet caster, and a bar and section mill. WinLink Flex from Primetals Technologies will be installed for the first time worldwide. This concept not only allows virtually uninterrupted casting and rolling of long products, but also reduces investment and operating costs. The new minimill meltshop is scheduled to come into operation early 2018.
GPH Ispat is based in Chittagong in southeast Bangladesh. It produces rebars and profile steels, and has a current production capacity of 168,000 m.t./yr of billets and 150,000 m.t./yr of finished products. The new minimill will allow the company to substantially increase its capacities, and become one of the country’s leading producers, serving the growing domestic and export markets.
Primetals Technologies will engineer and supply the processing equipment for the complete minimill meltshop. An EAF Quantum electric arc furnace with a tapping weight of 80 m.t. and a tap-to-tap time of 40 minutes will produce steel at a rate of up to 36 heats per day. The EAF Quantum cuts operating costs with energy consumption figures as low as 290 kW.h/m.t. A special automation solution will be implemented so that the electric arc furnace can be charged with various combinations of diverse mixtures of scrap metal, or with DRI and HBI. Further processing takes place in an 80-m.t. ladle furnace with a heating rate of 4°C/min.
The three-strand continuous billet caster has a machine radius of ten meters, and casts around 815,000 m.t./yr of billets with diameters ranging from 130 to 180 mm. The caster is directly connected to the downstream rolling mill. The high casting speed of up to 6 m/min and the compact size of the WinLink design allow two of the three strands to feed the downstream rolling line almost continuously. This eliminates the need for the usual reheating furnace; instead, an induction furnace heats the billets to the required temperature, again reducing investment and operating costs. The third strand produces billets for subsequent further processing or for sale on the market.
The bar and section mill has a production capacity of 640,000 m.t./yr at a maximum production rate of 120 m.t./h and a rolling speed of up to 27 m/s. The rolling line has 20 fifth-generation Red Ring stands, including horizontal, vertical, convertible and universal stands. If required, the line can be run in two-slit rolling mode. The scope of supply also includes a system for rapid stand change, water cooling, a system for transferring steel bars at speeds up to 27 m/s to the cooling bed, which is 78 m long and 11.2 m wide, and a multi-strand stretch leveler. Primetals Technologies will also supply hot shears for cropping and dividing, a cold shear, a disk for cutting steel sections, a machine for counting rounds, mechanical and magnetic solutions for stacking and bundling finished products, and a banding station. In addition, there is secondary plant equipment, such as a mill workshop and laboratory, hydraulic and lubrication systems, special mechatronic packages, low-voltage supply, motors and drives, an uninterruptible power supply (UPS), as well as basic automation (Level 1) and process automation (Level 2). Primetals Technologies will also be responsible for supervising installation and commissioning work