Highveld upgrades its Witbank plant
Carli Lourens
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Trade and Industry Editor
SA’s second-largest steel maker, Highveld Steel & Vanadium, said yesterday it had completed the first phase of a R1,5bn upgrade programme at its Witbank plant.
The programme was aimed at improving plant performance and reducing costs. This formed part of efforts to raise Highveld’s steel production capacity 15%-20% over the next three to four years, from 950000 tons a year.
The group said that the first phase of the upgrading programme drew to a close with the opening of an R85m reheat furnace. The furnace was built and commissioned in only nine months, and was regarded as a world first in the industry, said Highveld.
New projects included the installation of an R85m ladle furnace, a R100m channel induction furnace and modifications to the value of R750m to an open slag bath furnace in the iron plant.
The company would also spend about R500m over the next five years, mostly in the iron and steel plants, to improve pollution control, it said.
Highveld said last month that it would change its standard structural production steel to a higher yield stress, which it expected would increase the use of steel by the local construction industry in line with global trends.
The 17% stronger steel would be sold at no additional cost.
Highveld, which is also the world’s biggest producer of vanadium, operated at full capacity last year in response to increased global and domestic steel demand to record its best year in steel manufacturing since 1989.
The company reported an increase of more than twelvefold in operating profit to R1,05bn for the year to December.
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