LONG PRODUCTS BULLETIN - SMS Meer GmbH

24 Newsletter 2/2010
Minimills
Kolkata, India: April 28 thru 29, 2010
”Minimill“ – The highlight at the
Wire-Rod Symposium in Kolkata
The symposium was well frequented.
Detailed information package for the participants.
In-depth discussions in the breaks.
Ulrich Svejkovsky, Vice-President
Long-Product Area, held the opening speech.
Mills for the production of wire rod hold
huge growth potential for SMS Meer, especially
in countries with constantly
growing economies. To take advantage
of this potential, we launched our own
series of symposiums on this issue earlier
this year. After the successful launch
in Mönchengladbach, the next event
took place in Kolkata, India, from April
28 to 29.
Huge interest. 250 representatives from
68 Indian firms attended the lectures presented
at the Hyatt Conference Center in
Kolkata during the two-day symposium.
The presentations focused on new products
and technical innovations contributing
to higher productivity in wire-rod
rolling.
Minimill for small production volumes.
In his introductory talk, Bimal Sarkar, Managing
Director and CEO of SMS Meer India,
presented a detailed overview of the Indian
steel market. The technical papers
that followed focused on the rolling of
wire rod, bars and sections. A topic lively
discussed was the ”Minimill“ concept for
small production volumes which combines
an EAF steelworks from SMS Concast
with a rolling mill from SMS Meer. ”Owing
to the relatively low investment costs,
plant owners in countries such as India are
seeing great future potential for this concept,”
is how Bimal Sarkar explains the importance
of this concept.
Further topics. Further papers dealt with
the development of a high-speed looper,
coil compactors for wire rod, and the new
wire-roll mill in Duisburg-Hamborn built
and supplied by SMS Meer.
In addition, SMS Meer’s subsidiary SMS
Schumag presented its machines for the
processing of cold-finished steel and copper.
The state of the art in inductive heating
was presented by SMS Elotherm. And the
services and products of SMS Meer’s “Service
Division” also aroused lively interest.
The SMS Meer staff used the breaks between
the papers for in-depth discussions
with our visitors. According to Sarkar “it is
obvious that our symposium comes at the
right time and tackles the right issues“.
Another wire-rod symposium took place
in São Paulo, Brazil, where SMS Meer recently
founded a new subsidiary.