SMS group. Strong on clear strategy. · 2013. 11. 22. · SMS Demag SMS Meer SMS group. Strong on...

Annual Report 2007

SMS Demag SMS Meer

SMS group. Strong on clear strategy.

SMS groupCorporate Communications

Eduard-Schloemann-Strasse 4 • 40237 Düsseldorf • GermanyTelephone +49 (0) 211 881-4127 • Telefax +49 (0) 881-4386

Internet: www.sms-group.com

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FIGURES

SMS group

SMS group in million EUR 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007

Total order intake 1,933 2,282 2,811 3,235 5,142

� of which SMS Demag 998 1,369 1,779 1,972 3,725

� of which SMS Meer 491 461 572 857 1,353

� of which SMS Plastics Technology 438 446 457 400 62

Sales 2,146 2,170 2,334 2,826 2,937

Order backlog 1,911 1,984 2,384 2,870 4,884

Employees 2) 9,535 9,479 9,223 8,999 7,613

� of which SMS Demag 5.117 5,005 4,801 4,994 5,501

� of which SMS Meer 1,840 1,938 1,818 1,810 1,823

� of which SMS Plastics Technology 2,567 2,525 2,564 2,143 232

Figures according to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)1) Including Other/Consolidation2) Year average with trainees

20030

400

800

1,200

1,600

2,000

2,400

2,800

3,200

Total1)

SMS Demag

Order intake by Business Areas in million EUR

SMS Meer

2004 2005 2006 2007

3,600

4,000

4,400

4,800

5,200

SMS Plastics Technology

SMS group

BUSINESS AREA SMS DEMAG

BUSINESS AREA SMS MEER

CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Page 4

STRUCTURE OF THE SMS GROUP Page 8

BUSINESS AREA SMS DEMAG Page 12

Steelmaking Plants/Continuous Casting Technology for Flat Products Page 16Steelmaking Plants/Continuous Casting Technology for Long Products Page 20Hot Rolling Mills and Cold Rolling Mills Page 24Aluminum Rolling Mills Page 28Strip Processing Lines Page 30Electrics and Automation Page 34Technical Service Page 38Technical Development Page 42

BUSINESS AREA SMS MEER Page 44

Tube Plants Page 48Long-Product Rolling Mills Page 52Forging Technology Page 56Nonferrous Metals Plants Page 60Induction and Heat Treatment Technology Page 64Technical Service Page 68Technical Development Page 70

SMS GROUP Page 72

Employees Page 72

CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS Page 74

Supervisory Board and Managing Board of SMS GmbH Page 103Addresses, Products and Services of Business Area SMS DEMAG Page 104Addresses, Products and Services of Business Area SMS MEER Page 108Managing Boards of the Companies Page 110

Annual Report 2007SMS group

GLOBAL ECONOMY

Still relatively strong, the global economy grew by 3.6 percent in 2007, although the US financial crisis significantly slowed the upward trend in the second half of the year. Estimated growth in 2008 will be 3.1 percent.

The US economy is likely to remain under pressure from the financial crisis, especially in the first half of 2008. This will be followed by a significant drop in employ-ment. That is why a maximum 2.0 percent growth is expected for the USA in 2008.

Meanwhile, Asia is still the most dynamic region. China and India will, once again in 2008, be the main engines of the global economy. Forecasts indicate that China will achieve an increase in GDP of some 10.5 percent, and the figure for India will be 8.2 percent. The Asian region as a whole is set to register growth of 8.1 percent in 2008.

Currently, the situation in South America is very stable. Expectations for the region are that 2008 will bring growth of 4.5 percent.

The growth of the European GDP will fall back to probably 1.8 percent only, as this will be the German growth rate also because of weaker exports.

The Russian economy continued to grow strongly in 2007, and the signs for 2008 are also favorable. That translates into an anticipated growth of 6.5 percent.

The same is expected in the rest of eastern Europe, where everything points to surging private consumption and increasing government expenditure.

THE STEEL MARKET

Crude steel production broke through the 1.2 billion tpa barrier back in 2006. Another record production left the steel mills in 2007. As much as 1.34 billion t of crude steel were produced, or an increase of 7.5 percent on the previous year. That puts the growth rate over the past five years at more than 7 percent per year.

Once again, the biggest increase was in China. Crude steel production there in 2007 totaled 489 million t, or some 16 percent up on the previous year. Even though Chinese growth rates have slipped since 2004, the country remains the driving force behind the global steel boom. Discounting China’s proportion of global crude steel production growth, the growth rate in 2007 would have been just 3.3 percent. Predictions for 2008 are that production will increase again by somewhere between 5 and 7 percent.

Global primary aluminum production in 2007 increased by approx. 5 percent to some 35 million t. Here again, China is responsible for a large portion of global production, totaling 27 percent. The current year looks like set for a similar increase.

PROSPECTS

As a leading supplier of metallurgical plants and machinery, the SMS group benefits directly from the sustained steel industry boom in the developing countries and growth regions of Asia. This upswing has even broken the traditional business cycle of the steel market. That is because the emerging economies have, for years, demanded large quantities of steel to build the infrastructure they need.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Executive Summary

This wave of new investment has given them leading-technology production plants. To stay competitive, North American, Japanese and European steel produc-ers must catch up. Therefore we expect an increased demand for revamps and modernizations in these

regions. Another great opportunity for business comes in the form of new plants for the steel industry in Russia. Considering the project situation right now, the boom in metallurgical plants and machinery construc-tion looks certain to continue on a global base.

Managing Board of SMS GmbH: Hermann Tetzner, Treasury and Controlling | Dr. Heinrich Weiss, Chairman & CEO | Dr. Kay Mayland, Business Area SMS Demag |Dr. Joachim Schönbeck, Business Area SMS Meer

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ORDER INTAKE

In the metallurgical Business we registered record order volume in 2007.

The excellent market situation helped the order intake of the SMS group to climb by 59 percent, reaching EUR 5,142 million (2006: EUR 3,235 million).

SMS Demag contributed to this figure with a surge of 89 percent to EUR 3,723 million (2006: EUR 1,972 million). Especially strong growth rates were achieved in the Steelmaking and Continuous Casting, Hot and Cold Rolling Mills, and Electrics and Automation Divisions.

Order intake at SMS Meer increased by 58 percent to EUR 1,353 million (2006: EUR 857 million). The Tube Plants and Long-Product Rolling Mills Divisions contributed strongly to this result.

A regional breakdown of the 2007 group order intake reveals a 48 percent proportion on the Asian market (2006: 42 percent), followed by Europe with 42 percent (2006: 39 percent) and the US with 9 percent (2006: 18 percent).

SALES

Sales by Business Area SMS Demag grew by EUR 237 million (+ 13 percent) to EUR 2,008 million (2006: 1,771 million). Business Area SMS Meer achieved a sales increase of EUR 194 million (+ 29 percent) to EUR 863 million (2006: 669 million). Due to the long-term nature of our projects, sales are delayed to one or two years behind the order intake. So we will have growing sales in the coming years.

After the divestment of nearly all of the companies in our Business Area Plastics Technology, sales there dropped by EUR 316 million to EUR 65 million.

In summary sales in the SMS group increased by 4 percent to EUR 2,937 million in 2007.

EMPLOYEES*

The average number of SMS group employees in 2007 was 7,613 (previous year: 8,999).

It is necessary to increase our capacity in view of the growing business volume in metallurgical plant construction. Our goal of expanding our market position also demands more human resources. In 2007, that resulted in 520 (+ 8 percent) additional employees and trainees in our metallurgical Business Areas.

Specifically, in Business Area SMS Demag, the number of employees rose by 10 percent compared to the previous year (4,994) and totaled on average 5,501 in 2007. Contributing to this increase was our acquisition of Hellingrath Gesellschaft für Prozessleittechnik mbH in May 2007. That added 93 employees to our work-force in Germany. All in all, this Business Area em-ployed 3,531 people in Germany and 1,970 abroad.

Business Area SMS Meer hired 1 percent more employees (+ 13), bringing its average for the year up to 1,823. This figure breaks down into 1,538 employees in Germany and 285 abroad. It is the result of the growing numbers of employees in the metallurgical business and the synergies from incorporating SMS Eumuco into the Business Area.

As a result of the sale of our plastics technology companies, 1,914 employees left the SMS group in 2007.

* Year average with trainees

Executive Summary

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FINANCIAL RESULTS

The SMS group closed the business year 2007 with a pre tax profit of EUR 176 million (+ 107 percent). This was more than double compared to the previous year (2006: EUR 85 million). The reasons for the increase were the much improved order situation and order quality in our metallurgical Business Areas. There was an additional contribution to the profit from the sale of companies in our Business Area Plastics Technology.

LIQUID ASSETS

We were able to increase net liquidity in 2007 by 51 percent to EUR 1,625 million (2006: EUR 1,075 million). This increase was due to successful business develop-ment in our metallurgical areas as well as returns from the sale of Business Area Plastics Technology companies.

CAPITAL EXPENDITURES

There was a growing investment of EUR 40 million in plants and equipment in 2007. The high level of orders in hand required additional as well as efficiency-improving additions to our equipment. The year’s largest investment project was part of the integration of SMS Eumuco GmbH into SMS Meer GmbH. To create the necessary space, we built a new office complex at our Mönchengladbach location. The building was completed at the end of the year, while the new heavy assembly plant was finished in March 2008.

The focus of investment at SMS Demag in 2007 was on machinery and plants as well as new IT systems. All these investments were made to increase efficiency and cut costs.

The most important capital expenditures in the coming years will be at SMS Demag. As part of our plant development program, we will invest more than EUR 60 million in our Hilchenbach operation over a period of four years. This project is earmarked for buildings, manufacturing plants and machinery, as well as infrastructure.

Dr.-Ing. E. h.Heinrich Weiss

Dr.-Ing.Kay Mayland

Dr.-Ing.Joachim Schönbeck Hermann Tetzner


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STRUCTURE OF THE SMS GROUP

DIVISIONS

The SMS group is, under the roof of the holding SMS GmbH, a group of global players in plant construction and mechanical engineering for the steel and nonferrous metals industry. It consists of the two Business Areas SMS Demag and SMS Meer, which jointly form SMS metallurgy. The two Business Areas operate as

STEELMAKING PLANTS/CONTINUOUS CASTING

TECHNOLOGY

HOT ROLLING MILLS/COLD ROLLING MILLS

STRIP PROCESSING LINES

• Reduction metallurgy • Converters • Electric steelworks • CONARC ® furnaces • Secondary metallurgy • Continuous casters for slabs • Continuous casters for long products • CSP ® technology • Filter and environment

protection plants

• Hot strip rolling mills • Steckel mills • Heavy plate mills • CSP ® technology • Tandem cold rolling mills • Reversing rolling mills • Skin-pass mills • Multi-roll mills • Morgoil ® bearings • Filter and environment

protection plants • Water treatment plants

• Pickling lines • Hot-dip galvanizing lines • Annealing lines • Coating lines • Annealing-pickling lines for

stainless steel • Shear and slitting

equipment • Regeneration, filter and

environment protection plants • Furnaces technology

SERVICE

ELECTRICS AND AUTOMATION

Structure

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PRODUCT AREAS

independent divisions cooperating closely with each other. The financial holding, SMS GmbH is responsible for strategic planning and controlling. The sole owner of the SMS group is the Weiss family.

TUBES

• Seamless tube plants

• Welded tube plants

• Large pipe plants

• Finishing plants and machines

• Section and billet mills

• Light section mills

• Bar mills • Wire rod mills

• Copper plants • Aluminum plants

SERVICE

HEAT TREATMENT

FORGINGLONG PRODUCTS

NONFERROUS METALS

• Open-die forging presses

• Powder presses • Schloemann

ex trusion presses • Eumuco Hasen-

clever closed-die forging presses

• Wagner-Banningring rolling machines

• Induction technology

• Reheating furnaces • Hardening plants • Quench and

temper lines


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A COMPANY THAT STANDS FOR FAMILY VALUES

Family Values

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CULTURE OF COOPERATION

The SMS group is a family-owned company with medium-size structures and a long tradition. Germany is our home, the world is our place of business. Our family of companies with employees from more than 40 nations promotes a culture of self-reliance, openness, team spirit and flat hierarchies. That goes for everywhere from China to India, North to South America, Russia to Italy.

As a high-tech company that is a leader on many markets, we depend on getting the best brains to work for us. Only through sustained innovative energy can we de fend our market position. That is why we put so much into being an attractive employer.

One strategy is taking qualified youngsters on board. We cooperate with universities and engineering schools to offer promising students grants, internships and support with dissertations, so they get to know our com -pany at an early stage. Another way of generating skilled staff is training at SMS. Currently standing at some 8 percent of employees, our quota of apprentices is far above the standard figure for Germany.

But that is not all. We want our employees with their valuable experience to stay with SMS. Proof of our success is that the average length of service at our company is more than 20 years. There are good reasons for this loyalty. Opportunities for our employees include an attractive continuous qualification program and excellent future prospects. We send staff on assign-ments abroad, and develop our own specialists and managers. All our employees participate in company profits.


The Managing Board of SMS Demag AG | Dieter Rosenthal, Hot Flat and Cold Rolling Mills | Dr. Kay Mayland, President & CEO | Rüdiger Zerbe,

Strip Processing Lines and Service | Burkhard Dahmen, Steelmaking Plants and Continuous Casting Technology | Eckhard Schulte, Commercials

SMS DEMAG: WELL PLACED IN TIMES OF PROSPERITY

SMS Demag

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Members of the Managing Board talk about the challenges facing a plant constructor in boom times, development of the company into a system supplier, and customers’ increased environment awareness.

Dr. Kay Mayland: 2007 was the third year of the boom in metallurgical plant and rolling mill technology. Our business always goes in cycles, but we’ve never expe - rienced such high peaks over a short time. Triggered by the Asian crisis in 1997, the global steel market dwin -dled for years. Then the Chinese economic engine kicked into gear with a bang. Other emerging economies such as Russia and India soon followed. And we’ve now seen unprecedented demand since 2005.

This situation poses several challenges. First, the procure ment side. These days, we compete for machine parts with plant constructors from all kinds of indus-tries. Ball bear ings and other parts are in short supply. Only a few specialized companies now sell the back-up rolls we use in our heavy plate mills. In fact, we’ll have to wait until 2014 for delivery of some types. Naturally, suppliers respond to this high demand by increasing their prices. That’s why our quotes can only give binding prices for the short term.

In view of these bottlenecks, our customers now have to accept longer delivery times. A customer who ordered a CSP ® plant – say three or four years ago – could expect to commission it after 24 months. Meanwhile, he has to allow a delivery time of 36 months. However, we’ve known most of our customers for years, and they accept this situation. The best expression of that is our strong order intake.

Eckhard Schulte: That’s right, we’re booking more and more orders. In the last two years, order intake at SMS Demag has more than doubled. And our sales figures are now catching up after the usual time lag. Orders placed today only translate into sales 36 months from now.

Dr. Kay Mayland: Higher sales have also improved our profits. Even if the global growth rate weakens, this won’t change. That’s because we’re looking at an ex ceptional upswing driven by the developing countries’ enormous demand. So far there are no signs of a slowdown in the steel industry in countries like China, India or Russia.


Eckhard Schulte: We’re already sitting on an order backlog of nearly two years. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t taking on any new orders. At the same time, we never promise customers anything we can’t deliver.

Dieter Rosenthal: We’ve got a reputation in the market as a tradition-rich company that stands for quality and reliability. To stay successful, we have to guarantee state-of-the-art technology and set new standards all the time. Customers must be able to see they get a value-for-money package with cutting-edge technology. And it’s important we develop new, patented products to protect SMS from increasing piracy.

Dr. Kay Mayland: There’s another way of fighting backagainst product piracy. Today, we offer not just single plants, but entire process chains, from mechanical equipment to electrics and automation systems. We’re an all-inclusive engineering outfit. It might be possible to copy certain machines, but a whole process chain is a much tougher nut to crack.

Dieter Rosenthal: Electrics and Automation is a key growth area for us, and we’re steadily expanding our range. That’s because business potential is growing over-proportionally in this area. Meanwhile, we’re able to fully equip more and more of our plant types with our own electrics and automation. We also recognize that lots of innovations in our industry come from interactions be -tween mechanical and process engineering on the one hand, and electrics and automation on the other.

Rüdiger Zerbe: The final element in our all-inclusive strategy, and incidentally our anti-piracy strategy, is service. Over the past ten years, we’ve taken our service supply range a long way. Customers want to outsource their repair & maintenance as well as moni-toring work to plant suppliers. That’s why we’ve developed a wide range of service packages at SMS Demag. There’s our 24/7 hotline or service joint ventures with customers. And we’re hiring more personnel for services all the time. Already some 500 employees work in this area.

Dr. Kay Mayland: It’s true we’ve built up a first-class service team. This is where all our investment over the decades in training and further training of skilled per -sonnel has paid off. Whenever we need skilled employ-ees, we can rely on our own trained staff. Nevertheless, the current boom means there’s a serious shortage of engineers. We know our success is based on our em -ployees. And, as a family-owned company with a long tradition, we’ve always believed in motivating our employees and offering them profit-sharing opportunities.

For three years now, our employees have had the option of plowing their Christmas bonus – 55.5 percent of their monthly salary – back into the firm so they benefit from a profit-based extra payment. This is linked to the certified and objectively proven economic performance of the company.

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SMS Demag

Excellent SMS Demag business development meant we paid our employees a bonus of 1.6 instead of just half a month’s salary in 2007.

Burkhard Dahmen: That’s a very transparent and fair arrangement. It shows how flexible we are at SMS Demag and how we adapt to new circumstances. The same goes for our relations with customers. Over the past few years, we’ve noticed a wave of consolidation in our largest customer group, the steel industry. More and more large units are forming. The best example is ArcelorMittal. We respond to this development by establishing key account managers for the new groups. At the same time, we still have lots of customers that operate as family-owned businesses like ourselves. They want a different kind of support. We’re there for both types.

Whatever their structure, all our customers are increa s-ingly aware of environment protection. The days are long gone when climate change was a topic only dis -cussed by scientists. The consequences of unchecked CO2 emissions are being felt all over the world. What’s

more, the breakneck growth of the emerging economies has, so far, come with little consideration for the environment. China is a good example. Chinese govern-ment figures indicate that the cost of pollution mean-while makes up 4 percent of GDP. That’s about half of the country’s annual growth. Rüdiger Zerbe: One result of all this is an increased demand for environmental technology. We’ve been supplying these products for years, but so far mainly to countries with strict environment protection laws. Now customers from threshold countries are catching up. Taking this on board, we’ve created e2-economy x ecology, our brand for eco-solutions. We want to convince our customers that these solutions not only meet growing environmental standards in their coun-tries, but also cut energy consumption and costs.

Dr. Kay Mayland: Water conservation, air purification, energy efficiency. Customers can see these not only affect the environment, but also pay off in hard cash. Economy and ecology are two sides of the same coin.

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Annual Report 2007SMS group SMS Demag

ENVIRONMENT PROTECTION IS ALSO AN ECONOMIC FACTOR BECAUSE ENERGY AND RAW MATERIALS PRICES HAVE INCREASED ALL OVER THE WORLD. THAT’S WHY SAVING ENERGY MAKES GOOD BUSINESS SENSE. SMS DEMAG SUPPLIES NUMER-OUS PROCESSES THAT HELP STEEL PRODUCERS CUT THEIR ENERGY CONSUMPTION.

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Sustained high demand for steel in the fast-growing economies of China and India once again increased our sales of steelmaking plants and continuous casters. We also benefited from the resurgence of Russia, which is thoroughly modernizing its steel industry, and the capacity expansion in India’s steel industry. After a lull, in vestment by our customers in the traditional steel regions in Europe, the US and Japan picked up. They purchased new plants as well as expanding and re -vamping existing facilities. We made full use of these developments to improve our already good market position. However, our success is not solely due to the growth of the global economy. A major factor is our ability to give customers a competitive edge by supply-ing new technologies and expanding our services.

MORE ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND

BETTER UTILIZATION OF RESOURCES

Considering rapid global climate change, environment protection today is not merely an option, but a neces-sity. That applies above all to responsible energy utiliza-tion. Energy is not only expensive, it is also scarce in many regions. Yet energy consumption in steelmaking is linked to the process itself, so it is difficult to reduce. That is why we developed a range of processes that help increase energy efficiency and offer customers not only cleaner, but also cheaper production.

The Baumco system recovers energy from converter gas. It works by cleaning the gas in a two-stage pro-cess, after which it is available as recycled energy. ArcelorMittal placed an order with us for retro-fitting its steelmaking plants in Gent, Belgium, and Bremen, Germany, with dedusting equipment and converter gas recovery plants. That will significantly cut CO2 emissions and production costs in these works, because they will substitute converter gas for other fuels.

Our customers can also apply the Midrex ® method to make considerable energy savings. We have been working with US company Midrex ® Technologies and Japanese steel producer Kobe Steel since June 2007 on marketing integrated CSP ® plants that apply this pro -cess. It saves energy above all by using natural gas to directly reduce iron ore, the raw material for steel. Subsequently, the gas is cleaned and mixed with fresh natural gas so it can be re-used in the process.

Yet the rapid economic growth of large threshold countries has not only made energy more expensive. It has also led to higher prices for key raw materials. SMS Demag`s CONARC ® technology allows customers to choose the lowest-cost raw material for each kind of steel production. CONARC ® furnaces combine the technological benefits of the electric arc furnace with those of the conventional converter blowing process in a single production unit. Depending on the grade required, the customer can decide whether to produce steel from scrap, pig iron or sponge iron.

Even 101 years after delivery of the first submerged arc furnace, innovation cycles for this plant technique are short. Our X-Melt Waste Recycling technique gives our customers the potential in the future to utilize residual materials cost-efficiently.

UNBROKEN TREND TOWARD

ALL-INCLUSIVE PLANTS

The best way to achieve top energy efficiency and flexible utilization of raw materials is with a production complex planned and built by a single supplier. Our customers appreciate the advantages of this approach. That is why demand for all-inclusive plants remains strong. Take for instance an order from Indian company Tata Steel. It comprises a basic oxygen steelworks with a downstream

STEELMAKING PLANTS AND CONTINUOUS CASTING TECHNOLOGYFOR FLAT PRODUCTS

Annual Report 2007SMS group SMS Demag

slab caster, including all systems for cleaning/dust ex -traction, secondary metallurgy, and process gas recovery. After commissioning in 2009, both main units will be the largest and most powerful in India’s steel industry. Demand for our secondary metallurgical equipment, especially RH plants, has increased in line with higher flat steel quality requirements.

As more and more people in the threshold countries earn significant disposable income, demand for cars increases. Steel producers all over the world aim to profit from this development by supplying the automo-tive industry, with its exacting standards. To measure up to the industry’s demands for top-quality steel grades, these companies need high-performance continuous casters. Only the best new plants meet these quality requirements. SMS Demag is the world’s number one supplier in this premium segment for high-value steel grades. We have achieved this position with a whole range of technical developments. Resonance-oscillation molds, CyberLink ® seg ments with Dynamic Soft Reduction, or X-Pact ® electric and automation systems are more than just abstract terms to steel makers. They are the basis for consistently high product quality. That explains why we have received orders for 50 continuous casters with a total of 63 casting strands since 2000.

What clinched the recent order from Tokyo Steel for a two-strand slab caster was the superior capacity of our plant. It meets complex requirements that guarantee a homogenous internal quality of the slabs. The continu-ous caster will be part of a new production facility constructed by Japan’s largest electric steel producer.

Salzgitter Flachstahl GmbH, Germany, ordered a turnkey slab caster with an extensive equipment package. It will produce slabs up to 2,600 millimeters wide and 350 millimeters thick. Salzgitter is planning to use the plant for casting micro-alloy steels, heavy plate grades and pipe grades resistant to sour gas.

Following successful development projects with Salz-gitter Flachstahl in the past, we agreed a cooperation project devoted to strip casting plants for high-strength, high-ductility steels. So far, these sophisticated grades – required above all in the automotive industry – could only be produced in the right quality by ingot casting. Salzgitter Flachstahl has successfully cast HSD steels on a pilot plant at Clausthal University of Applied Sciences. The next step is working with SMS Demag to build a strip caster for HSD grades on an industrial scale and at a competitive price. This new plant for continu-ous horizontal casting of HSD steels will be erected at Salzgitter’s Peine location.

After a very short project time of just 16 months, we commissioned a turnkey two-strand slab caster for Mittal Steel Poland. The plant in the Da̧browa Górnicza works also features special technical highlights. Included here is a break-out prediction system combined with a system that measures the temperature distribu-tion inside the mold. They give our customer a precise overview of the casting process at all times.

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MAJOR ORDERS

STEELWORKS

– Corus Staal BV, Netherlands. 330-t twin ladle furnace.

– Tata Steel, India. Basic oxygen steelworks.– Essar Steel, India. Conarc ® steelworks.– OAO Severskij Tube, TMK group, Russia. Electric

steelworks.– Jindal South West, India. Steelworks dedusting

plant incl. gas purification and gas recovery system for converters.

– OAO Tagmet, Russia. Electric steelworks.– Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP), India. Basic

oxygen steelworks.– SeverCorr LLC, USA. Second phase:

steelworks extension.– Forpost Management, Russia. Electric steelworks.– Novolipetsk, Russia. 380-t duplex RH plant.– Shougang, China. 210-t RH plant.

SUBMERGED ARC FURNACES (SAF)– Barro Alto, Brazil. Ferronickel furnace.– Votorantin, Brazil. Ferronickel furnace.– Eramet, New Caledonia. Ferronickel furnace.– Kazzink, Kazakhstan. Copper matte plant.

CONTINUOUS CASTERS– Salzgitter Flachstahl GmbH, Germany. Single-strand

slab caster.– Tata Steel, India. Two-strand slab caster.– China Steel, Taiwan. Two-strand slab caster.– Tokyo Steel, Japan. Two-strand slab caster.– Bhushan Steel and Strips, Ltd., India. Single-strand

slab caster.– Jindal Southwest, India. Two single-strand

slab casters.

COMMISSIONING PROJECTS

STEELWORKS– Ural Steel, Russia. 120-t electric arc furnace.– Georgsmarienhütte GmbH, Germany. 140-t

ladle furnace.– ArcelorMittal Tubarao, Brazil. 315-t converter.– Celsa Steel, UK. Turnkey electric steelworks.– SeverCorr LLC, USA. Electric steelworks.– Tata Steel, India. Converter modification.– Isdemir, Turkey. Converter steelworks.– Nizhnij Tagil, Russia, 160-t duplex RH plant.

CONTINUOUS CASTERS– Mittal Steel, Poland. Turnkey two-strand slab caster.– Maanshan Iron & Steel Co. Ltd., China. Two two-

strand slab casters.– Jindal Steel & Power, India. Single-strand slab caster.– Isdemir, Turkey. Continuous slab caster.

Annual Report 2007SMS group CONCAST

ON A GROWING GLOBAL MARKET FOR STEEL, CUSTOMERS DEMAND EVER MORE SPECIFIC PRODUCTS. WE REACT TO THE DIFFERENT REQUIREMENTS WITH CUS-TOMIZED DESIGN. TO MAKE THIS POSSIBLE, WE CONTINUOUSLY DEVELOP NEW EQUIPMENT AND TECHNIQUES.

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The global economy continued its vigorous growth in 2007. That coincided with a high demand for raw ma-te rials. Concast AG, which specializes in long product plants also benefited from this development. The Swiss-based company in our group booked a large number of new orders and expects sustained customer interest from around the globe in 2008.

Unlike economic upswings in the past, this latest boom is worldwide. That means demand for steelworks and continuous casters for long products is not restricted to individual regions. Orders in 2007 came not only from a handful of threshold countries, but also and increas-ingly from traditional industrial regions. The advantage for Concast is that stagnation phases in one region can be offset by high demand in others.

We booked a broad range of orders – from revamps to new machine units right through to large-scale all-inclusive plants. There is a noticeable trend toward new plants above all in rapidly developing Asian countries. Customers have bought plants for all steel products, from construction steel to quality steel and pipe products.

UNBROKEN DEMAND FOR

LARGE PLANTS

It has been evident for some time that our customers prefer bigger-format continuous casters. More and more products that used to be cast in ingots are now being transferred to continuous casting. What made this possible were new developments in plant technique such as our mechanical soft reduction. This method calculates center defects and ensures the reduction force is optimally distributed across the shaping area between the roll segments. That produces the required quality as well as high operational reliability.

We recently commissioned a plant equipped with this technique for our customer Jiangyin Xing Cheng Steel. It is ideal for casting jumbo blooms with a casting cross-section of 370 to 490 millimeters. The machine can cast 870,000 t per year of high-grade bearing steels.

FOCUS ON DEVELOPMENT

As markets all over the world grow, the range of customer specifications also increases. That is why we have stepped up our technical development work. There is a special focus here on more efficient energy utilization, constant improvements in product quality, and more automation for higher cost-effectiveness. Take for instance our All-Convex technology. It provides for higher casting speed along with even better steel quality. Our designers have succeeded in improving this technology so that the quality of the long products remains con stant, also in the critical edge area.

STEELMAKING PLANTS AND CONTINUOUS CASTING TECHNOLOGY FOR LONG PRODUCTS


MAJOR ORDERS

– Tianjin Iron & Steel, China. Two all-inclusive plants with 110-t electric arc furnace, ladle furnace, degasser, six-strand bloom caster, six-strand billet caster.

– ICDAS Biga 2, Turkey. 220-t electric arc furnace, ladle furnace, eight-strand billet caster.

– Siam Yamato Steel, Thailand. 80-t electric arc furnace, ladle furnace, five-strand caster for blooms and beam blanks (together with SMS Meer).

– Duferco La Louviere, Belgium. 90-t VD/VOD degasser.– Hellenic Halyvourgia, Greece. 70-t electric

arc furnace.– PNTZ, Russia. Five- and three-strand bloom casters

(together with SMS Demag).– Saarstahl, Germany. Five-strand bloom caster.– Sumitomo Kokura, Japan. Three-strand bloom caster.

MAJOR


– Jiangsu Shagang Steel, China. All-inclusive plant with 110-t electric arc furnace, ladle furnace, vacuum degasser and six-strand billet caster.

– Kardemir, Turkey. 90-t VD plant.– Colakoglu, Turkey. Eight-strand billet caster.– Jiangyin Xing Cheng Steel, China. Four-strand

bloom caster.– Riva Caronno, Italy. Four-strand caster for blooms

incl. round formats.– Von Moos Stahl AG, Switzerland. Four-strand

billet caster.– Gerdau Ameristeel, Canada. Five-strand billet caster.– Mechel Targoviste, Romania. Three-strand billet caster.– ArcelorMittal Steelton, USA. EMS for 370 x 600

bloom formats.– Ovako, Finland and Netherlands. BMM (Billet Marking

Machine) and OPR (Optical Product Recognition).

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CONCAST


THE BOOM HAS GENERATED A LARGE NUMBER OF ORDERS FOR SMS DEMAG. THEY RANGE FROM REVAMPS TO NEW TURNKEY PLANTS. SPECIAL HIGHLIGHTS WERE AN ORDER FROM RUSSIAN COMPANY OAO MMK FOR A HEAVY PLATE MILL AND ONE FROM THYSSENKRUPP FOR A HOT AND COLD ROLLING MILL COMPLEX IN ALABAMA, USA.

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The global economic expansion was one reason for another increase in order intake by our Hot Rolling Mills/Cold Rolling Mills Division in 2007. Sales were also up significantly. It was noticeable that orders came not only from the world's new growth regions, as in previous years. While demand from the threshold countries remained strong, there was a clear drive to catch up in the traditional industrialized nations. Unlike China, India or Russia, demand in these countries did not center on new plants. The focus here was on revamps of existing plants. Included in the range of orders was everything from replacement of individual machines, to expansion of production, and right up to renewal of entire plant complexes.

This trend toward modernization is set to continue in 2008. There are already signs of higher demand from the US, where years of sluggish investment are giving way to a wave of revival. Furthermore, as there is no indication of a slowdown in threshold countries, we expect more strong demand. All in all, we anticipate market volume in 2008 at the same high level as 2007.

GERMANY MODERNIZES

For the first time in years, a larger proportion of orders came from our own domestic market. Set on increasing capacity, ThyssenKrupp Steel ordered an extensive revamp of its hot strip mill in Bochum. New centering side guides and work roller tables for the roughing stand as well as a complete upgrade of the horizontal mill stand will improve the width tolerances of the hot strip, while increasing yield and capacity.

Similarly, Salzgitter Flachstahl decided to continue to improve its hot strip mill. Included in the modernization are extensive modifications and replacement of central plant parts. The revamp will also expand the company’s capacity. AG der Dillinger Hütte plans to renew and extend the plate cutting equipment at its heavy plate mill in Dillingen, Germany. To this end, the company

awarded us a contract to modernize its cropping shear and supply a new cross-cutting shear. All three orders are planned in such a way that work coincides with our customer’s maintenance stoppages. That will result in minimal disruption due to the modernization.

LARGE ORDERS

SMS Demag received two plant orders that rank among the largest in our corporate history. Russian steel producer Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine (MMK) ordered a new heavy plate mill including all the plants for rolling and processing plate, plus the upstream con-tinuous slab caster. With a rolling force of 120 MN, the mill stand will be one of the world’s most powerful. MMK plans to manufacture above all large pipes for pipelines at its Magnitogorsk location in the southern Urals. They are increasingly in demand for the oil and gas industry.

The second record order comes from ThyssenKrupp Steel and comprises an all-inclusive hot and cold rolling mill complex in Alabama, USA. The hot strip mill is designed for an annual capacity of 5.4 million t. That will make it the world’s most powerful plant for the processing of high-grade, high-strength steel. It will above all supply the US automotive industry.

HIGHER REDUCTIONS,

FEWER PASSES WITH CVC PLUS

A major factor behind our success in securing orders is the technical edge we give our customers with our innovations. One of these new developments is our patented CVC plus process. It adjusts bend and shifting position separately for each pass according to the rolling force. The special roll contour and the axial shifting of the work rolls produce an exact profile with maximum flatness. Using CVC plus, strip of various dimensions can be produced without time-consuming roll changes.

HOT ROLLING MILLS AND COLD ROLLING MILLS


There was high demand for machines and all-inclusive plants for cold rolling mills as well. It was due to our new technical developments and continuous improve-ment of work and production processes that SMS Demag was able to defend its position as market leader in this sector. Especially on the market for upgrades, we benefited from our ability to offer customers tailor-made supply packages. In April and May 2007 alone, we commissioned seven 20-roll cold rolling mills for stainless steel in China and Italy.

EXTENDED RANGE

Only about one year after signing the order contract, we commissioned an 18-high cold rolling mill for Yieh United Steel Corp., Taiwan’s largest stainless steel producer. The 18-high mill stand is a new type in our range of products. It is a combination of the proven 20- and 6-roll mill stands. What is special about the 18-roll mill stand is the extremely slender work rolls, support-ed by cluster arms at the sides. This plant design achieves high pass reductions for strip with low final thicknesses. It also increases the range of minimal final thicknesses that can be produced, especially from harder materials.

The stainless steel market for cold-rolled strip has been growing steadily for years. That means more and more steel that requires higher plant, process line and rolling mill capacities. Equally significant, producers face tough competition, so they have to keep produc-tion costs as low as possible. Responding to this situation, SMS Demag has developed an innovative continuous high-performance tandem mill. It consists of several rolling mills installed in tandem with extremely slender, horizontally supported work rolls. Where production capacity is 400,000 t or more per year, this new plant type is more cost-effective than conventional stainless steel rolling on reversing plants.

TIME SAVINGS WITH

“PLUG AND WORK”

An important factor when upgrading existing plants by replacing or adding individual parts is keeping production stoppages caused by commissioning work as short as possible. That is where our Plug & Work concept comes in. It involves pre-assembly and testing of key plant parts in our Hilchenbach workshop. One example is the new reversing cold rolling mill for our Spanish customer Tubos Europa. We pre-installed the entire automation system, testing all the processes under realistic conditions. As part of this program, we trained the customer’s operating personnel in Germany on the new machines. That considerably shortened the commissioning time in Spain, and our customer saved not only time, but also a great deal of money.

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SMS Demag

MAJOR ORDERS

COLD ROLLING MILLS (NEW PLANTS)– Magnitogorsk, Russia. Tandem mill in the pickling/

tandem mill, newly developed level 1 and 2 models as part of the electrics and automation we supplied.

– Baosteel Group (BSSB), China. 20-roll rolling mill.– Tianjin, China. 20-roll rolling plant (mills No. 3 + 4).

REVAMPS– TKS Rasselstein, Germany. Modernization of tandem

mill 1 (2nd stage).– Ugine & Alz (ArcelorMittal), Belgium. Conversion of

reversing rolling mill.– ThyssenKrupp Acciai Speciali Terni, Italy.

Two Z-high mills moved from Turin to Terni.

MAJOR


COLD ROLLING MILLS– Yieh United Steel, Taiwan. 18-roll mill stand.– Shougang, China. Five-stand tandem mill.– SeverCorr LLC., USA. Tandem mill and skin-pass mill.– Benxi Iron Steel, China. Two reversing cold mills.– Lianzhong Stainless Steel Co. (LISCO), China. One

Monoblock and one Splitblock 20-roll mill stand.– JSW Steel Limited, India. Two-stand reversing mill,

offline skin-pass mill.

MAJOR ORDERS

HOT ROLLING MILLS (NEW PLANTS)– ThyssenKrupp Steel, Germany. Hot and cold rolling

mill complex for the Alabama/USA location.– Benxi Iron & Steel, China. 2,300-mm hot rolling mill.– Colakoglu, Turkey. Compact hot rolling mill.– ESSAR, India. CSP ® hot rolling mill.– YINGKOU, China. Two-stand heavy plate mill.– MMK, Russia. 5-m heavy plate mill.– Maghreb Steel, Morocco. Twin-stand Steckel mill.– Baosteel Special Steel Branch, Shanghai No. 5,

China. Steckel plate mill.

REVAMPS– Dongkuk Steel, Korea. Revamp of plate mill.– Baosteel, China. New rougher for plate mill.– ThyssenKrupp Steel, Bochum, Germany. Cropping

shear, width optimization of roughing stand and edger WBW3.

– Salzgitter, Germany. Renewal of drive systems, stand 1 of the hot strip mill.

– Corus IJmuiden, Netherlands. Modernization of hot strip mill.

– Nucor Hickman, USA. Production increase of 1st generation CSP ® plant.

– Outokumpu, Sweden. Modernization of descaler.– Dillinger Hütte, Germany. Cross-cut shear,

cropping shear.– Tata, India. Modernization of hot strip mill.

MAJOR


HOT ROLLING MILLS– Maanshan Iron & Steel, China. 2,250-mm hot strip

mill.– Shougang, China. 2,160-mm hot strip mill.– SeverCorr LLC., USA. CSP ® plant.– Baotou Iron Steel, China. Heavy plate mill.


PARALLEL TO STEEL, DEMAND FOR ALUMINUM IS CONSTANTLY RISING, ESPE-CIALLY IN THE THRESHOLD COUNTRIES. CHINA IS RE-EQUIPPING ON A MASSIVE SCALE. THE CHINESE MARKET LEADER FOR ALUMINUM FLAT-ROLLED PRODUCTS, CHINALCO RUIMIN, AS WELL AS ITS COMPETITOR QINGHAI PING AN ALUMINIUM ORDERED ALL-INCLUSIVE NEW PLANTS.

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Economic expansion in the major threshold countries has not only created a high demand for steel. Aluminum is also required in increasing quantities. That also goes for aluminum processing machines. Most orders for new plants from SMS Demag in 2007 came from China.

NEW SITES IN CHINA

The Chinese market leader for aluminum flat-rolled products, Chinalco, ordered a further non-reversing cold rolling mill for extension of its works in Fuzhou. The plant can produce both foil blanks and finished material. With this high-performance mill, Chinalco aims to maintain its position as a leading supplier of aluminum flat-rolled products. Its competitor, Qinghai Ping An Aluminium, is keen to join the ranks of top players in the industry. This company ordered two CVC-6 cold rolling stands from SMS Demag. Both cold strip mills can manufacture a broad range of products including foil blanks, finished strip and surface-critical litho material for the printing industry. Versatile and efficient, the two SMS Demag plants make up the central works unit at the new production location of Qinghai in northeastern China. Our two Chinese customers insist on the best quality for their aluminum products, which is why they chose SMS Demag plants. They both plan to serve not only their domestic market, but in the future also the global market.

MODERNIZATION IN GERMANY

Unlike the emerging economies, the established industrialized countries are already equipped with most of the necessary industrial infrastructure. That is why companies here tend to invest more in modernization than in completely new business locations. Take for instance the restructuring project in Germany and Belgium launched by aluminum producer Aleris. The company engaged SMS Demag to transfer a 148” alumi-num plate roughing stand from its Koblenz works in

Germany to its Belgian location in Duffel. This conver-sion work in Duffel will considerably boost the capacity of the plant. Yet Aleris is also investing in Koblenz to expand production there. SMS Demag will replace the present 148” aluminum-plate mill stand with a much larger 160” facility. That will give Aleris the world’s most powerful aluminum plate hot rolling mill stand for high-tech aluminum products up to 3,900 millimeters wide.

NEW SHAPING METHOD

A major factor behind the market success of our aluminum rolling mills is their utilization of advances in technology. Take for example the “snake rolling” process. It is developed by steel and aluminum manufac-turer Corus for the new 160” mill at the Aleris works in Koblenz. (In 2006 Corus sold the Koblenz facility along with its works in Europe, Canada and China to Aleris.) The new process will make the material tougher and more resistant to fatigue.

ALUMINUMROLLING MILLS

MAJOR ORDERS

– Xiashun Alu, China. Aluminum hot rolling mill and aluminum cold rolling mill.

– Ping An, China. Two non-reversing cold rolling mills in CVC6-HS design.

– Chinalco Ruimin, China. Cold rolling mill in CVC6-HS design.

– Aleris Duffel, Belgium. Transfer of 148” mill stand from Koblenz to Duffel.

MAJOR


– Nanshan, China. Two one-stand cold rolling mills.– Aleris, Germany. 160” aluminum mill stand.


EXPERTISE FROM ONE SOURCE IS OUR BUSINESS. IT COVERS MECHANICAL, THER-MAL AND CHEMICAL PROCESS ENGINEERING, ELECTRICS AND AUTOMATION, AND ALL COMPONENTS OF FURTHER PROCESSING. THAT REDUCES THE NUMBER OF INTERFACES FOR OUR CUSTOMERS.

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Seamless process engineering and equipment dominate the business development of our Strip Processing Lines Division. What our customers get from our holistic approach to processes is precision equipment and superior-quality, reduced-cost production.

This is how our Strip Processing Lines Division again increased its leading position. Order intake and sales grew vigorously in 2007. There was particularly strong growth in hot and cold strip processing lines.

SMS Demag supplies its high-performance pickling lines complete with all the necessary components. Included here are mechanical and chemical equipment, acid recovery plants, and laser welding machines.

LASER WELDING MACHINE

CUTS COSTS

One of our strengths is our ability to constantly utilize new ideas for our technical developments. That also applies to the laser welding machine we developed. Today, this type of machine is first choice for continuous pickling lines. Its compact design makes it easier to commission. Furthermore, it comes with a large number of extras for welding special steels. All components are available from one source, which optimizes the technical performance of the entire SMS Demag entry area. The welding machine is an integral part of the entry concept and has already been installed in a new turbulence pickling line at Salzgitter Flachstahl, Germany.

MAJOR ORDERS FROM

THYSSENKRUPP STEEL AND MMK

ThyssenKrupp Steel ordered a combined pickling line/tandem mill, a continuous pickling line, and four hot-dip galvanizing lines from SMS Demag. They will be used for further processing carbon steels in its Mount Vernon, Alabama, USA, facility. The PL-TCM’s annual production capacity of 2.5 million t will be one of the world’s highest.

Our Russian customer Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Combine (MMK) awarded us an order to supply a continuous caster and a heavy plate mill, plus another order to erect a cold strip complex with a pickling line/tandem mill and several strip refining plants.

PICKLING LINE FOR

STAINLESS STEEL STRIP

In addition to the large order package for its new Mount Vernon facility, ThyssenKrupp Stainless awarded us a contract to supply an annealing and pickling line for stainless steel strip. It will be part of the hot and cold strip complex and is primarily intended for processing hot strip.

Baoshan Iron & Steel Co. Ltd., Special Steel Branch (BSSB), engaged us to supply a continuous annealing line and a continuous pickling line for hot and cold strip as well as a 20-roll cold rolling mill for special-grade strip such as nickel- and titanium-based alloys as well as special stainless steels.

STRIP PROCESSING LINES


MAJOR ORDERS

HOT-DIP GALVANIZING LINES– MMK, Russia. Hot-dip galvanizing line and combined

continuous annealing/hot-dip galvanizing line.– ThyssenKrupp Steel, USA. Four hot-dip

galvanizing lines.– ILVA Cornigliano, Italy. Conversion of entry area of

CGL 1 and 2.

PICKLING LINES– MMK, Russia. Coupled pickling line including three

regeneration plants.– Tokyo Steel, Japan. Pickling line including regene-

ration plant.– ThyssenKrupp Steel, USA. One coupled pickling line

and one continuous pickling line.– ILVA Cornigliano, Italy. Modification of coupled

pickling line entry area as well as pickling section and exit looper.

– ILVA Novi Ligure, Italy. Modification of pickling line entry area.

– Baoshan, China. Continuous pickling line for stainless steel.

ANNEALING LINES– Shougang Jing Tang, China. Continuous

annealing line.– Baoshan, China. Continuous annealing line for

stainless steel.– ThyssenKrupp Steel, USA. Annealing and pickling

line for stainless steel.

OTHER PLANTS– Severstal, Russia. Paint coating line.– MMK, Russia. Recoiling and inspection line.– Handan, China. Cross-cut shear line.


HOT-DIP GALVANIZING LINES– Hyundai Hysco Dangjin Works, Korea. One CGL

and one CVGL.– SeverCorr LLC., USA. Hot-dip galvanizing line.

PICKLING LINES– China Shougang Corporation, China. Pickling line for

coupled pickling line/tandem mill.– Baosteel International Co. Ltd., China. Pickling line

for coupled pickling line/tandem mill.– SeverCorr LLC., USA. Pickling line for coupled

pickling line/tandem mill.– Outokumpu Stainless AB, Avesta, Sweden.

Modification of pickling line for stainless steel.

ANNEALING LINES– Wuhan Iron & Steel Co. Ltd., China. Continuous

annealing line.– China Steel Corp., Taiwan. Si annealing and

coating line.– ThyssenKrupp Acciai Speciali Terni, Italy.

Annealing and pickling line for stainless steel.

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SMS Demag


TIME IS MONEY. THE SMS DEMAG PLUG & WORK METHOD HELPS CUT COSTS. ALL PLANT PROCESSES GO THROUGH VIRTUAL TESTING BEFORE INSTALLATION. DURING COMMISSIONING, WE USE OUR PIOS SYSTEM TO SWITCH ON MACHINE UNITS IN STAGES WHILE PRODUCTION IS RUNNING.

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SMS Demag

Just like our other Divisions, Electrics and Automation also profited from high demand in 2007 due to growth in the steel industry. Beside orders for greenfield plants the number of modernization orders remained at the high level of the previous year. To cope with the extra work-load, we hired and trained more personnel. Furthermore, we increased our capacity by purchasing Hellingrath Gesellschaft für Prozessleittechnik mbH. As in the past few years, most of our business in 2007 came from Russia, India and China. However, SMS Demag equipment also goes to Turkey, the USA, Japan and Korea. Considering this high degree of international activity, it is important to stay close to our customers. We are aware of the importance of understanding and responding to custom-ers’ specific requirements. That is why SMS Demag is currently strengthening its global footprint.

TECHNICAL IMPROVEMENTS

ATTRACT NEW ORDERS

Moreover, we continue to work on methods our custom-ers can use to optimize their production processes. Included here is refining our flatness measuring roll. Now it is designed to withstand even high temperatures during silicon steel strip processing, while operating reliably and seamlessly. The improved measuring system detects the smallest tolerance deviations, a precondi-tion for guaranteed reproducible production. The system was installed for the first time at Chinese company Wuhan Iron & Steel for manufacturing silicon steel strip with special electromagnetic properties.

NEW MODERNIZATION STRATEGY

GUARANTEES MORE RELIABLE

PRODUCTION

Stoppages, commissioning and slow run-up curves cost customers large amounts of money during plant moder-nization. To avoid this, SMS Demag has developed a system that saves time during alterations so that in-vestments pay off much more quickly. The principle behind this new method is parallel operation. It involves installing the new plant components into the existing machine units step by step while the old facilities still in operation. A process IO server (PIOS) switches the new parts on one after the other. Should there be any problem, the old automation system is still available to take over again. There is no need to stop production for the revamp. Our new strategy was used for the first time at our customer Bilstein, where we revamped the tandem cold rolling mill.

PLUG & WORK CUTS TIME

AND COSTS

Another time-saving SMS Demag development is our Plug & Work system. It involves testing all automation components long before commissioning. We assemble them in our test centers and put them through their paces under near-reality conditions. Simultaneously, we train our customers’ operating personnel on the machines. That significantly cuts commissioning time on site. Customers benefit from minimal disruption of production.

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ELECTRICS AND AUTOMATION

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MAJOR


STEELWORKS / CONTINUOUS CASTERS– Mittal Steel, Poland. Turnkey delivery of electrics

and automation for a two-strand slab caster.– Georgsmarienhütte, Germany. Electrics and

automation for the ladle furnace.– SeverCorr LLC., USA. Electrics and automation for a

CSP ® caster.

HOT ROLLING MILLS– SeverCorr, USA. Electrics and automation for a

CSP ® rolling mill.– ThyssenKrupp Steel, Germany. Modernization,

electrics and automation for several coilers.– ThyssenKrupp Steel, Compass, USA.

COLD ROLLING MILLS– Bilstein GmbH & Co. KG, Germany.

Modernization of the electrics and automation of the four-stand tandem mill.

STRIP PROCESSING LINES– ThyssenKrupp Steel, Dortmund, Germany. Moderni-

zation of the continuous annealing line entry area.

MAJOR ORDERS

STEELWORKS / CONTINUOUS CASTERS– JSC Pervouralsky Novotrubny, Russia. Electrics and

automation for an electric steelworks and a caster.– Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works, Russia.

Electrics and automation for a slab caster.– Tata Steel Ltd., India. Electrics and automation for a

BOF converter and a 2 x 2-strand slab caster.– Essar Steel Limited, India. Electrics and automation

for an electric steelworks (CONARC) and a CSP ® continuous caster.

– Tokyo Steel Manufacturing Co. Ltd., Japan. Electrics and automation for a 2-strand slab caster.

– Wuhan Iron & Steel, China. Electrics and automation for a CSP ® caster.

HOT ROLLING MILLS– Wuhan Iron & Steel, China. Electrics and automati-

on for the CSP ® finishing mill.– Minmetals Yingkou Medium Plate Co., Ltd., China.

Automation for all plants in the heavy plate mill.– Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works, Russia. Electrics

und automation for a heavy plate mill.– Colakoglu Metalurji A.S., Turkey. Electrics and

automation for a hot strip mill.– Essar Steel Limited, India. Electrics and automation

for the CSP ® finishing mill.– Tata Iron & Steel Co. Ltd., India. Modernization of

the automation of the hot strip mill.– Dongkuk Steel Mill Co. Ltd., Korea. Heavy plate mill,

modernization of the automation for the rolling mill.

COLD ROLLING MILLS– Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works, Russia. Electrics and

automation for a coupled pickling line/tandem mill.

STRIP PROCESSING LINES– Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works, Russia. Electrics

and automation for a combined hot-dip galvanizing and continuous annealing line, as well as coiling and inspection line, and packing lines.

SMS Demag


OUR CUSTOMERS INCREASINGLY DEMAND TAILOR-MADE SERVICES. OUR INTER-NATIONAL SERVICE STARTS WITH FAST SUPPLY OF SPARE PARTS AND STRETCH-ES TO THE DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF COMPLETE MAINTENANCE AND REPAIR CONCEPTS.

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Along with the dynamic growth in our order volume for new plants, the demand for services is also increasing. Especially in times of expanding markets, our customers require more than cutting-edge equipment. They also want their plants to run smoothly all the time. Quick repair and maintenance work is a must, and fast support should be on hand if production is disrupted. That is why more and more customers around the world rely on SMS Demag service. There is a definite tendency among our key accounts to sign service contracts only if they can count on support from experts available locally. We are already well positioned in this respect on the two largest markets, China and Russia. Our service workshop in Shanghai offers help close at hand for the Chinese and East Asian market. In Russia, we have established another support center for the CIS countries with SMS Demag Metallurgical Services Vyksa.

BROAD RANGE OF SERVICES

Over recent years, we have steadily extended our range of after-sales services. Meanwhile, our customers’ demand for services covers much more than convention-al maintenance. As the technical complexity of our plants increases, customers require constant advice on the scope for optimization. That is why we are register-ing a rising demand for audits designed to improve their processes. Whenever our regular service engineers reach their limits, they quickly get in touch with our specialists: experts for hydraulics, process models or repairs.

Our inspection and repair service covers the entire process chain, not only the equipment supplied by SMS Demag. We focus on components that are under special strain and that are crucial for the functioning of the entire system. Our Integrated Maintenance Manage-ment System (IMMS ®) offers preventive maintenance that keeps technical plant conditions under control.

Our spare parts service is more important than ever. Today’s plants are technologically more sophisticated, so replacement parts are equally high-tech. They can only be correctly and reliably installed by specialists. That explains why customers increasingly make use of our spare parts service package, including assembly and commissioning.

Reliable production and efficient maintenance depend on skilled employees. That is why SMS Demag offers training programs around the world. Courses take place either in SMS training centers or on site at our custom-ers’ facilities. Naturally, they are available in a variety of languages.

EMERGENCY SERVICE VITAL

ESPECIALLY IN TIMES OF GROWTH

Serious disruptions often result in stoppage of an entire production line for a longer period of time. Rapid help is vital to limit customers’ costs as far as possible. That is why SMS Demag has set up an emergency service that gets its team and the necessary spare parts in minimum time straight to the customer, wherever in the world a fault has occurred.

For instance, our rapid fault analysis and repair saved ArcelorMittal in Aviles, Spain, from an extended plant stoppage. Severe damage occurred to a ladle turret in mid-2007, bringing production to a standstill. Within a short time, a ten-man SMS Demag service team repaired the damage.

TECHNICAL SERVICE


MAJOR ORDERS

SERVICE– VSMPO, Russia. Titanium rolling mill, Plant

Monitoring System.– Tata Steel, India. Hot rolling mill, Plant

Monitoring System.– Salzgitter, Germany. Hot rolling mill, technological/

design plant optimization.– Mannesmannröhren, Germany. Heavy plate mill,

IMMS ® (Integrated Maintenance Management System).

– Corus, Netherlands. Emergency work on converter, replacement of torn tension elements.

– Saarstahl, Germany. Continuous caster, changing of roller slewing ring.

– ArcelorMittal, Poland. Continuous caster, support for the mold and segment workshop.

– Outokumpu, Finland. Steckel mill, hydraulic service/annual inspection.

– Hunan Valin, China. CSP ® plant, extensive spare part package for finishing mill.

– WISCO, China. Hot rolling mill, extensive spare part package.

– North Star Blue Scope, USA. Hot rolling mill, spare part package for spindles.

– ILVA, Italy. Hot rolling mill, repair of CVC ® shifting blocks.

– MMK, Russia. Cold rolling mill, extensive replace-ment part package for coiler.

– Ternium Sidor, Venezuela. Hot rolling mill, wheel sets for gear units, stands 1 and 2.

– ArcelorMittal, Spain. Converter, repair of tilt drive system.

– Angang, China. Dust extractor, Venturi throat, radial blower.

– Baotou, China. CSP ® plant, mold copper plates.

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SMS Demag


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PRICES FOR KEY RAW MATERIALS SUCH AS ENERGY OR INDUSTRIAL METALS HAVE SURGED. SMS DEMAG DEVELOPS NEW METHODS FOR BETTER UTILIZATION OF RESOURCES. WASTE RECYCLING PLAYS A MAJOR ROLE.

SMS Demag

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TECHNICALDEVELOPMENT

Our market success is based on leading technique and technology. We constantly develop new products, optimize processes, and adapt our machines and plants to higher customer demands. They in turn face growing quality requirements on the market for their materials. Car manufacturers in particular expect ever better quality steel grades. Responding to the global climate change debate, they aim to build lighter autos that use less fuel and cause less pollution. Yet the new steels need to be just as high quality. They must be high-strength and still ductile to comply with safety stand-ards. In this situa tion, steelmakers depend on us to develop plants they can use to produce innovative steels reliab-ly and as cheaply as possible.

When it comes to producing today’s highly complex materials, it makes good sense to link up the various processes from steelmaking to casting, hot rolling, cold rolling right up to strip processing. Only when all these processes mesh perfectly producers can guarantee the right product quality and reliability. SMS Demag develops strategies and software systems to make this possible. Specifically, we develop early warning sys-tems, simulation models that identify potential faults, or intelligent maintenance concepts for components under heavy wear.

CONTROL SYSTEMS IMPROVE

PRODUCTION STABILITY

Apart from troubleshooting and maintenance technol-ogy, we have also developed control systems that support customers during production. A typical example is our automatic leveling control for hot strip mills. We designed completely new measuring systems that

register and rectify even the smallest deviation. Should for instance the strip tension distribution be uneven, this causes the strip end to flap during unthreading from the finishing mill, leading to cracks or tears. These in turn often damage the rolls, and ultimately bring the entire rolling process to a stop. That spoils above all surface-critical materials for direct further processing e. g. for wheel rims. SMS Demag control systems prevent these costly faults.

HIGHER VALUE WITH BETTER

RAW MATERIALS UTILIZATION

One consequence of the global boom is that many raw materials for steelmaking have become extremely expensive in recent years. Included here are metals such as copper, nickel, or precious metals such as platinum. Our innovative intensive cleaning system downstream of a conventional slag-cleaning furnace significantly increases the usability of these metals. The patented intensive cleaning process solves the problem that occurs when finely dispersed droplets of copper, nickel or precious metal do not sink in the metal phase of the furnace, but remain in the slag instead. Using the new type of cleaning, the copper content in, say, copper slag can be reduced by a further 0.2 to 0.5 percent. We also see a large potential for greater utilization of precious metals. As the investment costs for the compact device are moderate, the ROI is short, which makes this an attractive new technique for our customers.

The Managing Board of SMS Meer GmbH | Dr. Joachim Schönbeck, President & CEO | Torsten Heising, Commercials

SMS MEER: CONTINUED UPWARD TREND

SMS MeerAnnual Report 2007SMS group

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The SMS Meer management talking about business year 2007, important developments, and future prospects.

Dr. Joachim Schönbeck: Currently, we are experiencing a historic high on the raw materials and energy markets. On the back of strong demand from threshold countries like China, important goods are in ever shorter supply worldwide. As an equipment supplier for the investment goods industry, we profit especially from this develop-ment. That’s why the 2007 business year was one of the best in the history of SMS Meer.

Torsten Heising: That’s right. Orders have jumped again. Sales have followed, and profit has even grown over-proportionally. We can be very satisfied. We’re working all the time on improving products and technical solutions that promise our customers business success.

Dr. Joachim Schönbeck: We’re the leader on nearly all of our markets. We beat the competition with new products that offer the best solutions in terms of technique and efficiency. I’ll give you a couple of exam-ples: PQF ® technique and the JCOE ® process. The background is that both the extraction and transport of oil and gas strongly impact on demand for pipes and for pipe-producing plants. Soaring oil prices make exploit-ing even hard-to-access deposits profitable. They’re often found in extreme climate regions such as Siberia or under the ocean bed. Offshore oilfields in particular mean transporting oil over very long distances, and that causes a huge demand for top-quality seamless

tubes. Our newly developed PQF ® equipment for processing high-strength steel grades at close toler-ances taps into this market just at the right time. Since its market launch in 2003, we’ve already booked ten orders for plants with PQF ® technique.

Pipeline projects are driving demand for large-diameter pipes. But existing production capacities can’t handle the demand quickly enough. That’s why a lot of manu-facturers have decided to build new plants. In the past few years, our JCOE ® process has emerged as the most cost-effective method for manufacturing large, top-quality pipes.

Producers can use it to make even comparatively small quantities profitably with a low investment volume. And that’s without compromising on pipe quality.

Torsten Heising: We’re determined to preserve our technical and technological leadership, and that takes constant hard work. That’s why we invest large sums each year on developing new products and processes that give our customers competitive advantages. It’s the only way to stay ahead and beat today’s fast-acting product piracy.

Dr. Joachim Schönbeck: In our experience, many of our new developments are copied at the latest after 18 months.

Torsten Heising: Quality will ultimately be what counts. After all, steelmakers and pipe manufacturers face tough competition. We’re always working on improving our cost structure so we can offer good value for money. Take for instance our introduction of SAP R3, the universal IT standard. It gives us more stable processes, better in-house coordination and therefore lower costs. We pass these directly on to our custom-ers. Another example is the re-location of our subsidi-ary Eumuco from Leverkusen to our Mönchengladbach location, both in Germany. Meanwhile, it’s practically fully integrated there, and we’ve slimmed down the entire overhead and increased our efficiency. Now we’ve pooled all our forging expertise, we can also develop solutions more quickly that span the individual processes.

Dr. Joachim Schönbeck: Technical improvement of our products and optimization of our in-house processes are two sides of the same coin. They both serve the purpose of supplying our premium-quality plants to the most demanding customers around the globe. Most of our orders in recent years came from the threshold countries China, India and Russia. There’s also a huge

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growth potential in the Middle East. If this region achieves peace, it would certainly have even better chances of growth. On the one hand, these countries have an enormous need for new infrastructure – just think of the reconstruction in Iraq. And on the other hand, they are the countries with large reserves of oil and gas. The future demand for pipes and pipe-lines is huge. However, we expect growth not only in the threshold countries. Meanwhile, investment in Germany has also picked up.

We’re also keeping a close eye on developments in North America to see how the economic slowdown there impacts on our markets.

Torsten Heising: We’ve only been able to make the most of the good order situation because we have first-class and motivated employees. Especially in the past year, we worked at the limit of our capacity. There were a lot of hours of overtime, extra shifts and new recruit-ment, mainly of engineers. Another 150 new jobs are planned in 2008.

Dr. Joachim Schönbeck: Of course it’s difficult to find really good personnel. But obviously, we have a lot to offer. I know our flat hierarchies that are typical for a family-owned company are very attractive for young engineers and technicians. They can move into respon-sible positions much faster than in other companies, where they wouldn’t have the same opportunities for years. Young specialists see they can really achieve something here with their newly acquired qualifica-tions. It’s also great that our longstanding philosophy of training more youngsters than we need is paying off. The fact that SMS Meer is an attractive employer

SMS MeerAnnual Report 2007SMS group

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shows in the commitment of our employees. Without their excellent work, we wouldn’t be able to process the large number of orders we got in the last year. And there’s no doubt our profit-sharing scheme is an extra motivation factor.

Torsten Heising: Our employees’ expertise is certainly one of the reasons we’re committed to staying in Germany, even though we’re a global player with 80 percent of sales coming from abroad. Another reason is that our technological expertise is based here.

Dr. Joachim Schönbeck: The question now is what lies ahead after the success of 2007? We’re still experiencing a booming global economy, especially when you look at how many countries are building up their industries. However, leading experts say there’s likely to be weakening global growth. But even slower development is not going to immediately affect SMS Meer’s business. We’ve already got enough orders lined up to take us through 2008 and the year after that. We expect 2008 to be another good year. Of course in the medium term, everything depends on how willing our customers are to invest.


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SMS MEER PLAYS A LEADING ROLE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF NEW TECHNICAL STANDARDS. MEANWHILE OUR PQF ® TECHNOLOGY IS ESTABLISHED AS A WORLD STANDARD FOR SEAMLESS TUBE PLANTS. OUR JCOE ® PROCESS IS ALSO THE INTERNATIONAL FIRST CHOICE FOR LARGE-DIAMETER PIPE PRODUCTION.

SMS Meer

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The world demand for energy has been rising for years, and has ensured strong growth on the market for tubes. That applies especially to oilfield and boiler tubes in Russia and China. Against this background, we were able to increase our market share for tube plants. We more than doubled order intake compared to 2006, which was itself a good year. Key reasons for this success are our full supply range and technological edge.

INTERNATIONAL LEADER

IN SEAMLESS TUBE PLANTS

Once again, we were able to improve our market posi-tion for seamless tube plants. We secured a large number of orders for new plants and revamps from around the world. A major reason for this success is our PQF ® (Premium Quality Finishing) technology for seam-less tube production. Meanwhile, we have wrapped up development of the second-generation PQF ® technology. There are already ten PQF ® plants in operation or con-struction worldwide. That has established PQF ® technology as the new standard for seamless tube production. The innovative technology is based on a three-roll system. As opposed to the previously conven-tional two-roll plants, it achieves more even shaping. That is why it can produce thinner walls. It takes less material to produce the same tubes, so the great advantage of PQF ® plants is improved cost-effective-ness. One of the most important orders in 2007 was the erection of a finishing center for seamless tubes including an all-inclusive heat treatment unit for Pervouralsky Novotrubny Works, Russia.

GROWING ENERGY MARKET

REQUIRES MORE WELDED TUBE

PLANTS

The inevitable consequence of the high demand for oil pipes and pipelines is a growing market for welded tube plants. SMS Meer has benefited over-proportion-ally from this situation. Especially in the large and quality pipe segment, we were able to increase our market share. For instance Jiangbei Steel Processing (WISCO) of China awarded us an order for a 26-inch high-frequency welded tube plant. The tubes to be welded measure 244 to 660 millimeters in diameter and have wall thicknesses up to 24 millimeters. The plant will be erected in the city of Wuhan on the Yangtze river. It is designed to process up to 350,000 t of tubes per year, making it the world’s largest plant of its kind.

We also continued our success in the market segment for the smallest tubes (< 8 inches). On the order of our Italian customer OTO Mills, we commissioned an 8-5/8-inch welded tube plant in Spain.

JCOE ® PROCESS ESTABLISHED

FOR LARGE PIPES

There is unbroken high demand for large-diameter pipe plants. Two new large pipe plants that use our innova-tive JCOE ® process will go to JSC Chelyabinsk (ChTPZ), Russia, and Zhongyou BSS Petropipe Co. Ltd., China. The Zhongyou plant will be the fourth large pipe plant we have supplied to China. The JCOE ® process we developed involves shaping the steel in stages in a press. It stands out for its low investment cost, high versatility and excellent pipe qualities. That gives our customers a decisive competitive edge.

TUBE PLANTS

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MAJOR ORDERS

TUBE PLANTS– JSC Chelyabinsk (ChTPZ), Russia.

18-m JCOE ® large-diameter pipe plant.– Zhongyou BSS Petropipe Co. Ltd., China.

12-m JCOE ® large-diameter pipe plant.– OAO “Pervouralsky Novotrubny Works”, Russia.

Finishing center for existing pipe works.– Severstal TPZ Sheksna, Russia. 16 ¾-inch

welded tube plant.– Arvedi, Italy. 12 ¾-inch welded tube plant.– Jiangbei Steel Processing and Logistics Co. Ltd.,

WISCO, China. 26-inch welded tube plant.– Vallourec & Sumitomo, Brazil. 16-inch PQF ® plant.– Jindal SAW Ltd., India. 6 5/8-inch PQF ® plant.– Angang, China. 7-inch PQF ® plant.– Anhui Tianda Oil Pipe Co. Ltd., China. 9 5/8-inch

PQF ® plant.– V&M Zeithain Deutschland GmbH, Germany.

Modification of CPE plant.– Rohrwerk Maxhütte GmbH, Germany. Modernization

of stretch-reducing mill.


TUBE PLANTS– Tubos Reunidos, Spain. Pipe tester.– Padana Tubi, Italy. Cutting plant.– Atlas, USA. Bundling plant.– Vyksa, Russia. Expander.– Chelyabinsk (ChTPZ), Russia. Expander.– TPCO, China. 18-inch PQF ® plant.– TVEL, Russia. Cold pilger mill 50 LC.– Westinghouse, USA. Four cold pilger mills.– OTO Mills, Italy. 8 5/8-inch welded tube plant.– Vyksa, Russia. Modification of 21-inch welded

tube plant.

SMS Meer


INTEGRATED SOLUTIONS FROM ONE SOURCE, SEAMLESS TECHNOLOGICAL RESPONSIBILITY AND EXPERTISE, LEAN PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND SIMPLE INTERFACES: SMS METALLURGY MINIMILLS FROM SMS MEER AND CONCAST.

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The sustained steel boom led to strong growth in order intake in the product unit section and billet mills, wire rod and bar mills as well as light section mills.

MINIMILLS: EXPERTISE FROM ONE

SOURCE

Working together under the roof of SMS metallurgy, SMS Meer and Concast supply integrated solutions comprising steelmaking plants, continuous casters and long-product mills known as minimills. In 2007, we attracted major orders in this segment. For Siam Yamato in Thailand, we are building a steelmaking plant and medium-section mill, and for South Steel-Pan Kingdom Invest Co., a steelworks with rebar rolling mill in Saudi Arabia.

INCREASED MARKET LEADERSHIP

IN BEAM MILLS

SMS Meer was able to secure almost all the orders awarded in the heavy section mills sector in 2007. That has increased our leading position in this area. We are set to erect medium section mills equipped with our newly-developed CS (Compact Stand) mill stand generation, including the necessary heating furnaces, for our customers SDI, USA, and Siam Yamato, Thai-land. For Hoesch Schwerter Profile in Germany we are supplying a compact group as a reversing mill, also featuring CS stands. We have also booked orders from India and China.

In Germany, we will modify the medium section mill at Salzgitter subsidiary Peiner Träger. Just like the new plants in India and China, the systems we will install here feature CCS ® (Compact Cartridge Stand) stands and CRS ® (Compact Roller Straightener) straighteners. CCS ® is a universal and two-high mill stand with hydraulic adjustment system and rapid program change. CRS ® is a straightener with double-support straighten-ing rollers and hydraulic adjustment that allows fast straightening roller changeover. Peiner Träger is the sixth company that has purchased CRS ® technology since its market launch in 2001. The producer from Lower Saxony is planning to use it to manufacture sections with close tolerances, good surfaces, high straightness and low residual stresses.

ORDERS FOR LIGHT SECTION,

WIRE ROD AND BAR MILLS

We received an order for our new PSM ® (Precision Sizing Mill) with hydraulic 3-roll adjustment from The Timken Company, USA. The scope of supply covers a bar finishing line for large diameters. We are also set to equip Weifang Iron & Steel, China, with two wire rod mills consisting of four wire rod blocks. New on the books were also a number of orders for light section mills with reheating furnaces.

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LONG-PRODUCT ROLLING MILLS


MAJOR ORDERS

LONG-PRODUCT ROLLING MILLS– Peiner Träger GmbH, Germany. Tandem mill, CRS ®

straightener.– Compania Española de Laminacion S.L. (CELSA), Spain.

New sideguard manipulator, CRS ® straightener.– Gerdau Acominas, Brazil. Extension of the long-product

finishing line.– Indian Iron & Steel Co. (SAIL), India. Long-product mill.– Hoesch Schwerter Profile GmbH, Germany. Tandem mill.– Siam Yamato, Thailand. Semi-continuous mill as part

of a new minimill.– Antai Iron & Steel, China. Heavy section mill.– Weifang Iron & Steel, China. Two wire rod mills.– The Timken Company, USA. PSM ® as well as

expansion of finishing line.– South Steel-Pan Kingdom Invest Co, Saudi Arabia. Bar

mill and walking beam furnace, part of a minimill.– Abinsk Electric Steel Works (Novorosmetall), Russia.

Reinforcing bar mill.– Metalloinvest, UAE. Reinforcing bar mill.– National Co., Syria. Bar mill.


LONG-PRODUCT ROLLING MILLS– Kardemir, Turkey. Section and rail mill.– ArcelorMittal Laminados, Zaragoza, Spain. Two light

section mills.– Gerdau Ameristeel, Knoxville, USA. Finishing plant.– Rizhao Steel, China. VCC ® line.

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SMS Meer


WE ARE THE WORLD’S ONLY SUPPLIER EXPERT IN ALL FORGING TECHNIQUES, OPEN-DIE FORGING, CLOSED-DIE FORGING, POWDER PRESSES, EXTRUSION PRESSES AND RING ROLLERS. THAT MEANS WE CAN GIVE OUR CUSTOMERS EXPERT ADVICE ACROSS ALL PROCESSES.

SMS Meer

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Order intake, sales and results of our Forging Technol-ogy Product Area have developed well. We achieved strong growth in forging presses, extrusion presses, and ring rolling plants. The only area of stagnation was the automotive market.

VIGOROUS GROWTH IN

OPEN-DIE FORGING

An exceptional global investment volume drove the market for open-die forging in 2007. This was due to the flourishing situation in the steel and engineering industry. There was also a healthy rise in demand for hydraulic radial forging machines.

Thanks to our superior technique, we were able to attract four orders from China and North America. That further enhanced our standing as the market leader in this segment. We anticipate a continuation of this vigorous demand for large and jumbo presses in 2008.

EXTRUSION PRESSES SUCCESSFUL

Our extrusion presses continued their success story with a large number of orders from both Europe and Asia. Not only our modern front-loader machines from the standard range, but also our indirect tube extrusion presses have established a market position as a model of innovative extrusion press technology. We attracted two orders for extrusion presses for steel tubes in high-alloy stainless grades, consolidating our position in this important market segment.

UNEVEN DEVELOPMENT OF

CLOSED-DIE FORGING PLANTS

While we are facing a downturn on the automotive mar-ket, heavy demand from the energy and aerospace industries is taking up the slack. Higher process tempe ratures, stronger materials and large component parts require new machine designs. The world’s largest screw press, SPKA 22400, went into production at Böhler Schmiedetechnik in Kapfenberg, Austria. Featuring a hard-on-hard blow force of 355 MN and a bench width of 3.2 meters, it sets new standards in shaping power, productivity and work piece size.

RING ROLLING MACHINES MAKE

THE GRADE WORLDWIDE

Global investment by ring and wheel producers remains high and filled our order books for ring rolling machines. There was a special focus on the Asian countries. Our customers were particularly interested in ring rolling machines and plants so they could meet the huge demand for parts such as bearing races or rings and flanges for wind energy turbines.

FORGING TECHNOLOGY


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MAJOR ORDERS

OPEN-DIE FORGING PRESSES– Saarstahl, Germany. 100/120-MN open-die forging press.– Dalian, China. 80/100-MN open-die forging press.– Ringmill, Italy. 40/52-MN 40

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