The company’s unique plate mill 5000 is now being assembled at Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK). The enterprise signed a contract with the German SMS-DEMAG regarding the delivery of all the equipment needed to put up the mill and a CC machine in 2006, and once the mill has been launched, MMK will be able to produce the highly profitable plate iron (up to 4,850 millimeters in width) for the O&G industry, ship-, bridge-, and machine-building. The company’s plate mill is normally most popular with manufacturers of large-diameter pipes as well.

Plate mill 5000 will be capable of producing about 1.5 million tons of plate iron a year, including some .3 million tons of heat treated sheets. The machine will probably be launched in the middle of 2009. MMK BOD Chairman Viktor Rashnikov says the mill is being constructed within an unprecedented period of only three years.

The spokesperson for Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works reports the foundation and the case of the building that will host the machine and the production shop have already been finished. The workers are now busy with the roof work and the cladding. At the same time, the assembling of the basic equipment has already begun as well. Some 45,000 tons of machinery will be assembled altogether, 13,000 tons of which have been delivered onto the site by now.