N.Z. to test steel mill plant

Press, 13 June 1984, Page 31

N.Z. to test steel mill plant

By

BRUCE ROSCOE,

in Tokyo

New Zealand will test new Japanese steel mill technology. It is an energy-saving plant developed by The Steel Company of Canada, Ltd, and manufactured by Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Company, Ltd (IHI), of Japan for the stage II expansion of the New Zealand Steel mill at Glenbrook.

The component — a coil box — is about the size of two seafreight containers and is said to increase steel slab length and rolling capacity. The coil box is intended to shorten the total length of a steel strip mill line.

No Japanese company had yet made a coil box and none were in use at Japanese steel mills, a spokesman for IHI said. New Zealand Steel’s order presented Japan with its first opportunity to make the equipment.

The Japanese industrial daily newspaper, “Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun,” says the boxes are being promoted for use by European and American steelmakers. IHl’s contract with New Zealand Steel would signal the beginning of a Japanese manufacturing and marketing campaign for the boxes. IHI was chosen by the New Zealand company last year as the prime contractor to construct a rolling steel mill plant with a yearly capacity of 550,000 tonnes of hot and cold strips.

The plant at 1981 prices was estimated to cost about $357 million, excluding financial costs, and is expected to be completed by the end of 1986. IHI said the coil box would take about two years to build.