UrBC, Magnitogorsk, July 25, 2019. Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) heavy-plate Mill 5000 got launched ten years ago this month. The mill has produced more than 10,000,000,000 kg of hot-rolled goods since then, MMK’s Information, PR & Advertising Department reports.

Russian President Vladimir Putin contributed to the mill’s solemn launching ceremony back then. Putin spoke very appreciatively of the mill which proved one of MMK’s largest investment projects in decades and aimed to meet the Russian oil and gas sector’s needs first.

Putin congratulated the plant’s owners, shareholders, and staff on completing one more gigantic and beautiful step in their production growth process. There were very few appliances like Mill 5000 in the world, Putin said, whilst the mill itself was probably the world’s only set of equipment that highly advanced at the time.

Mill 5000 is the key component of MMK’s heavy-plate rolled goods production line (Mill 5000 proper, a ladle refining unit, and CC machine 6). MMK and the German machine-building group SMS-DEMAG signed the contract for the delivery of the mill equipment in November 2006. The mill now makes highly paying heavy plates (width: up to 4,850 mm; strength grade: up to X120) for customers in the oil and gas sector and ship-, bridge-, and machine-building industries. The mill makes about 1,500,000,000 kg of rolled produce a year.