(Continued from the previous post.) We saw two MultiDockers at Thamesteel.
The first (far left), based on a Cat 365, was selecting from different types and grades of waste to make up the batch required for the furnace.
A second MultiDocker was sorting heavy melt, such as steel girders, at the other end of the store.
For each operation the furnace takes about a hundred tonnes of waste, loaded in three passes. Thamesteel produces recycled steel through a Fuchs UHP Electric Arc Furnace, consisting of two in-line ladle furnaces.
Although we weren't allowed into the furnace area, we did see a tapping from a safe distance.
Thamesteel's four-strand continuous billet casting machine produces billets 150 mm square, 9.6-13 metres long, with an average weight of 2 tonnes. The steel is cut to length automatically. The mill has an annual output of 750,000 plus tonnes of steel a years.
LV Handling's Iveco Stralis 430 is taking a 20-tonne load to Sheerness Docks to be loaded into 40-60,000 tonne vessels for the rolling mills in Saudi, and eventually for their building industry.
The mini-mill does produce products other than billets. For more information about this facility see Thamesteel's website.
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