The New World of Hot Strip Rolling – Achievements at Rizhao Steels’s New ESP Complex Setting New Standards

Investing in five ESP lines is one thing, starting up the first three lines after only 20 months within half a year is an extraordinary masterpiece of project management. Since production started, all three lines together have produced and sold already more than three million tons of ultrathin high quality steel by April 2016 and Rizhao steel has faced the saturated Chinese steel market. Already during earliest start-up phase, records have been broken in a row: in the shortest time possible, from first cast to first coil, further to first endless operation and to first 0.8 mm production. Production records like extra-long sequences exceeding 3000t, extra-long work roll life time over 170 km, starting of sequences directly in endless mode thus increasing the yield are listed here just to name some of them. The percentage of ultra-thin production down to 0.8 mm was quickly maximized to follow the high demand on the Chinese and oversees markets. The setup of the new production complex includes also processing facilities to complete all services for high quality hot rolled and galvanized strip production to feed also the cold rolled market. This paper describes the project itself, plant start-up, achievements, and the cold facilities setup at Rizhao steel.