Primetals Technologies has received the Final Acceptance Certificate (FAC) for a heavy plate mill at Kobe Steel's Kakogawa plant in Japan.
The mill was commissioned in 2021 as Kobe Steel wanted to use state-of-the-art equipment to improve product quality and further increase the already short and stable delivery times. Primetals Technologies was responsible for supplying the core mechanical equipment, auxiliary and secondary technologies as well as supervising the construction work and on-site implementation.
Plate mills
The heavy plate mill at Kobe Steel's Kakogawa plant had been in operation since 1972. Kobe Steel chose Primetals Technologies as the supplier for the new mill mainly because of its extensive references for similar projects in Japan and other parts of the world.
Primetals Technologies managed to deliver and implement the rolling mill on schedule, even though the project started while supply chains and many other processes were still heavily affected by restrictions and constraints related to the Covid-19 pandemic. The timely implementation was made possible mainly by the close cooperation and efficient communication between the Primetals Technologies team and the Kobe Steel employees.
Improved performance of the finishing mill
The new finishing mill is equipped with the most modern solutions. It processes plates with thicknesses from 4.5 to 360 millimeters at widths from 1,000 to 4,500 millimeters. The thin plate mill enables Kobe Steel to improve the mill's performance in terms of both product quality and delivery times, while increasing its competitiveness within the steel plate industry.