Chinese steel giant Baogang Wanteng’s 6-strand bloom caster has been hot tested, continuously casting three heats in its first operation.

The plant is in Wuhai City in Inner Mongolia and hot commissioning of its package-supplied caster took CISDI five days.

Six strands were smoothly cast through the withdrawal straighteners and cut by the torches.

The hot-tested slab featured Q235B steel with a cross section dimension of 320mm x 410mm. The casting speed was around 0.5 metres a minute.

“The slabs are of very good quality. The hot test was surprisingly fast and smooth, thanks to CISDI’s preparations and coordination of sub-suppliers, construction workers and our teams,” commented a spokesperson for Baogang Wanteng. “We are grateful for CISDI’s support in our commitment to restructuring.”

The caster will be producing heavy blooms in a specification range of 230mm x 350mm and 320mm x 410mm. Its annual production of 1.56-million-tonne slabs will feed into the downstream H500 section rolling line.

The CISDI-supplied 6-strand bloom caster at Wanteng Steel is in operation after its five-day hot test