TPT January 2025

INDUSTRY

Coil slitter installed in Tata Steel’s UK tube mill proves its worth AS the new Tata Steel slitter passes 10,000 tonnes of coil processed, works manager, Andrew Ward, has explained the rationale behind the £7mn investment in Hartlepool, UK as well as its collaboration with its sister tube making site in Corby. Mr Ward said: “To produce the hot rolled coil as a substrate for our smaller diameter pipes, we’ve traditionally had to cut the slab in half lengthways in Port Talbot and roll a narrow slab on the hot mill. That impacts speed of work and the mill’s capacity, which was the main reason for the investment here.” The Port Talbot hot mill is the UK’s bottleneck unit, limited to rolling around 3 to 3.5 million tonnes of slab per year. The smaller size range makes up around 60,000 tonnes of Hartlepool’s order book. Mr Ward added: “Being able to slit wider coil here allows the Port Talbot hot strip mill to increase its capacity by around 50,000 tonnes – the benefit is in the millions of pounds. There are additional yield and quality benefits and potential reductions in energy with an increased ability to hot connect (roll slabs that have retained much of their heat from being cast rather than heat up from cold). “It has been a big learning curve as we’ve installed the machine ourselves. We have spent time at Corby where they have multiple slitting lines – their experience has been invaluable. There has been some really good sharing and learning: we’ve been there, they have visited here, and we’ve seen real improvements. Since summer shutdown we’ve seen a real step change in performance,” he said. “Cleaning up the quality of the edge really makes a difference on the fracture toughness performance and mechanical properties of the weld line in our high frequency weld process. “Now we have to carefully manage the transition over the next few years, but this investment has become critical as

The Tata Steel slitter has processed 10,000 tonnes of coil

many overseas suppliers don’t want to supply coil less than 1,000mm wide. We’ve designed it to be one of the widest, thickest slitting lines in the UK, so its massively important until the electric arc furnace comes online. “We have customers specifying low CO 2 ‘green’ steels from us on particular jobs. They are driving us to demonstrate that we are reducing our CO 2 impact – some are prepared to pay more for that demonstration of green steel capability. If we don’t do something we’ll get left behind. “I’m excited about the future here – we’re a multi-functional, multi-operational multi-product business, which enables us to ride different waves of demands. We’ve worked hard to develop new products and the mill is busy. We’ve had support to improve and invest in quality, safety and productivity,” he concluded. In October 2024, Tata Steel ceased ironmaking at its Port Talbot, Wales site and temporarily paused steelmaking pending the construction of an electric arc furnace, due to be commissioned in late in 2027 or early 2028. For that period, the business will import slab and hot rolled coil to support manufacturing and distribution operations at sites across Wales, England and Northern Ireland as well as Norway, Sweden, France, Germany and UAE.

Tata Steel www.tatasteeluk.com Danieli Centro Tube technology for ERW mills

sections, with wall thicknesses up to 3 /

NUCOR Tubular Products Marseilles has awarded Danieli Centro Tube a contract for a new orbital cut-off saw for the existing 5K-ERW mill in Marseilles, Illinois, USA. The new orbital cut-off saw will cut to length welded tubes up to OD 6 5 / 8 " (168mm) and equivalent square and rectangular

8 " (9.5mm) at speeds up

to 460fpm (140m/min). The high speed and cut-to-length performances are obtained thanks to a reduced weight of the moving parts and a powerful, ultra-precise traveling system on the cutting head car. The new orbital cut-off saw replaces the existing friction saw, with the main target to improve the cutting quality and eliminate the current cutting burrs. The equipment features cutting-to-length optimisation to minimise scrap tube lengths, a fully automatic set-up, a reduced number of jaws and easy maintenance. In addition, the new cut-off is designed to fit the existing foundations without any major modifications. The start-up is foreseen by the end of Summer 2025.

The new orbital cut-off saw replaces the existing friction saw, with the main target to improve the cutting quality

Danieli Centro Tube www.danieli.com

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JANUARY 2025