WCI Steel Warren Continues Multi-Phased Upgrades

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas). After emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this year, WCI Steel (Warren, Ohio) is continuing a series of three mill upgrades, which began construction earlier this year. One project is the addition of a $29.3 million, 800,000-scfm baghouse system, which will help to control particulate emissions from the melt shop and cast house areas. The addition of the new baghouse will give WCI two separate baghouses. S/D Engineers, Incorporated (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) performed the planning and procurement for the project. MikroPul (Charlotte, North Carolina), a leading manufacturer of dust control and by-product recovery products, is the baghouse supplier. Ductwork and structural work are being performed at this time, with main installation scheduled to begin in August. The project should be completed by April 2007.

A second project at the mill this year is the addition of two 200-ton per hour walking beam reheat furnaces, to replace the mill’s old pusher-type furnaces. Some preliminary work has already begun (demolishing of the slab run-back facility and the old furnace), but the major work will kick off in July. Completion of the $36.7 million project is expected toward the end of 2007. Core Furnace Corporation (Coraopolis, Pennsylvania), a division of Techint Technologies of Milan, Italy, is handling the design and procurement for this project, and S/D Engineers, Incorporated was chosen for the installation of the furnaces, along with the necessary building changes.

The third project, which had been planned earlier, but was postponed in favor of the first two projects, is a consolidation of the mill’s two pickling lines (combined capacity 865,000 tons per year), to streamline WCI’s finishing operations. This $10 million project, initially scheduled to begin in November 2005, has been tentatively pushed out until late 2007 or early 2008.

According to company sources, WCI has invested over $400 million in capital improvements at the Warren mill since 1988, and the company doesn’t mean to rest on its laurels, and has planned more upgrades to meet the needs of the 21st century. The blast furnace underwent a $15.3 million reline in 2004, and is expected to serve for about six to eight years.

The LMF-Vacuum Degasser facility was installed in 1991, allowing WCI to produce more sophisticated grades of steel and to enter value-added steel markets. The basic oxygen furnace (BOF), which consists of two 180-ton vessels, can produce up to 160,000 tons of steel a month in a wide variety of carbon, alloy, and high-strength steels.

The mill’s twin-strand, curved-mold continuous slab caster, with a width range of 24 to 63 inches, was installed in 1991. The half-mile long hot strip mill includes three reheat furnaces, a vertical scalebreaker, a 2-hi roughing stand, a 4-hi reversing rougher/edger, six finishing stands, and three downcoilers.

A major upgrade of the hot strip mill, including a new work roll cooling system at the finishing stands, a new strip cooling system, a new downcoiler, increased computerization, and upgrades to the electrical system, was completed recently.

WCI's rolling and finishing facilities consist of two pickling lines, a cold reduction mill, an acid regeneration plant, batch and hydrogen annealing units, and two temper mills. The temper mills have a combined annual capacity of 600,000 tons per year.

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