ArcelorMittal Poland will invest over PLN 100 m in its cold rolling mill in Kraków. The investment programme will cover three projects: replacement of engines in the rolling mill, modernization of the sheet pickling line and purchase of a new grinder. Completion of this programme is foreseen for the end of this year.
“This is yet another investment package we are implementing in our Kraków plant. At the end of last year we informed about environmental projects in our coke plant, which value exceeds PLN 30 m. This is the best evidence of our investment appetite for the Kraków plant, and that we, as ArcelorMittal Poland, want to keep our downstream rolling operations at Kraków sustainable and ready to meet the growing expectations of our customers” informs Sanjay Samaddar, chairman of the ArcelorMittal Poland Board of Directors.
The first project is already completed. It consisted of replacing three direct current engines of one of the rolling stands of the rolling mill by one alternating current engine.
“The higher engine power made it possible to accelerate the rolling mill and this way the line’s efficiency has increased” explains Wojciech Koszuta, COO Flats ArcelorMittal Poland. “What is worth noticing is the environmental aspect of this investment – despite the increase of rolling mill capacity, energy consumption will not increase” he adds.
Modernization of the sheet pickling line has been planned for the fourth quarter of this year. Hot rolled coils before cold rolling must be cleaned from so called scale, i.e. a mix of iron oxides formed during the hot rolling process. Pickling, i.e. cleaning the sheet from surface defects in hydrochloric acid solution is done at the 250m long pickling line. Thanks to automation, the processes done before the material enters the line will be shortened. The number of hot rolled sheet coils prepared to be pickled at the same time will increase. The packing band will be taken off of them by a robot. The preliminary section will also be automatized: a new sheet rolling machine will be installed, as well as a narrow strip coil tying machine and new trolleys for transport. Also the cutting of sheets for tests will be done automatically.
“Thanks to these works we will increase the capacity of this line” says Dawid Latkowski, director of the cold rolling mill.
In the roll grinding shop there will be a new, fully automated grinder working with great precision – deviations in the surface of the grinded rolls will not exceed 0.002mm/m.
“Kraków remains to be an important place for ArcelorMittal, but also an important centre in the map of European steel producers. In the past years we have invested here PLN 500m, and the projects which we are currently implementing are worth PLN 130m. We have other investments also planned. After all, our Kraków unit is an important producer of steel among others for the household appliances industry. The probability that each and every one of us at home has a washing machine, refrigerator or dishwasher made from steel produced in our Kraków plant is very high” summarizes Sanjay Samaddar.
