Rolled Products

OVERVIEW

Scaw’s operation in Germiston has two rolling mills; one producing low- and high-carbon wire rod (supplied to Scaw’s wire rod operations) and a range of ­merchant bar, the other producing light and medium sections.

The combination rod bar mill has a 100 tonne per hour, walking beam re-heat furnace, 21 stands in line and two outlets, a cooling bed for straight products of up to 76mm diameter and a 10 stand, high speed, wire rod mill with controlled cooling facilities for wire rod of up to 18mm diameter. The section mill has a three-high tilting table breakdown mill and one two-high sizing mill that feeds either a medium section train that produces channels and equal and unequal angles, or a ten stand continuous small section and bar train for smaller angles and flats.

Steel is produced in an 85 tonne UHP-EBT arc furnace and ladle furnace combination, which feeds a three strand, high speed, continuous billet casting machine. The caster is equipped with convex water-cooled moulds that allow for high casting speeds and electromagnetic stiring systems that achieve high quality steels. The melt shop uses a high proportion, up to 60%, of directly reduced iron (DRI) in its furnace charge. The DRI is produced from three coal-based rotary kilns located at the Germiston operation in South Africa.

AltaSteel, based in Edmonton, Canada, is a scrap based, mini mill operation with melting and continuous casting ­facilities, a bar rolling mill and a grinding rod heat-treating facility. AltaSteel produces continuously cast bloom and billet that are rolled into rounds, squares, flats and rebar for the manufacturing, oil, construction, automotive and mining industries, including bar for the forged steel grinding media operation in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada.