24 July marked ten years since the launch of the unique Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works (MMK) plate Mill 5000. Over its 10-year history, the unit has produced more than 10 million tonnes of hot rolled steel.
Russian President Vladimir Putin attended the ceremony celebrating the unit being commissioned. He praised the work of the mill, which has become one of MMK’s largest investment projects in recent decades and is focused primarily on the needs of Russia’s oil and gas industry. "I would like to congratulate MMK – the owners, shareholders, staff and experts who have taken another significant, major and, I would say, beautiful step forward in the industry’s development. You can count the number of complexes like Mill 5000 worldwide on one hand. But, in reality, there are probably no complexes that are so technologically advanced anywhere in the world,” Putin said.
Mill 5000 is a key element in MMK’s complex producing thick plate, which includes the Mill 5000 itself, a secondary metallurgy complex, and the continuous casting machine No. 6. A contract was signed in November 2006 with the German machine-building group SMS-DEMAG to supply MMK with equipment for the mill. The mill produces highly profitable sheet steel, up to 4,850 mm wide and with a strength category of up to X120 for the oil and gas industry, shipbuilding, bridge building and mechanical engineering. The capacity of Mill 5000 is about 1.5 million tonnes per year. Today, this unit is built on world engineering’s most recent technology. It produces high-quality and competitive products needed to implement major infrastructure projects in the Russian fuel and energy industry, the construction of ships of various classes, in bridge construction and other industries.
About MMK
MMK is one of the world’s largest steel producers and a leading Russian metals company. The company’s operations in Russia include a large steel-producing unit encompassing the entire production chain, from the preparation of iron ore to downstream processing of rolled steel. MMK turns out a broad range of steel products with a predominant share of high-value-added products. In 2018, the company produced 12.7 mln tonnes of crude steel and 11.7 mln tonnes of commercial steel products. MMK Group had sales in 2018 of USD 8,214 mln and EBITDA of USD 2,418 mln.
(Ukrainian metal)
