Beltrame revamps French, Swiss plants

French merchant bar mill Laminés Marchands Européens (LME) and Stahl Gerlafingen (SG) in Switzerland, both part of Italian merchant bar producer Beltrame, are to revamp their facilities with two new heating plants for blooms. These will be provided by equipment maker GF-ELTI.

The new equipment will enhance quality, and lower energy consumption and emissions. The start-up of both plants is planned for the beginning of 2023. LME will install a Walking Beam Furnace, bilateral heating type, and 13 pairs of GF-ELTI Regenerative Burners of 4.0 megawatts each, with digital on-off control and a productivity of 90 tonnes/hour. The new SG plant will consist of a pusher furnace with bilateral heating type, and 23 pairs of GF-ELTI Regenerative Burners of 3.2MW each, with digital on-off control, capable of reaching a 124 t/h production.

The new furnaces can use hydrogen thanks to the experience gained by GF-ELTI’s H2BURN – High Efficiency Burners fuelled with a hydro-methane blend.

“The two new reheating furnaces at the French and Swiss plants will … guarantee high productivity and reliability. This will allow us to be even more competitive in an increasingly demanding steel market,” Beltrame chief executive Alain Creteur says in a joint note seen by Kallanish.

Meanwhile in Romania, Beltrame restarted producing rebar at the recently acquired steel plant COS Targoviste. The steelmaker intends to invest €100 million ($103m) over the next five years to update Targoviste’s outdated equipment, boosting its competitiveness at a European level (see Kallanish 24 June).

Natalia Capra France