Castrip LLC, Charlotte, N.C., has signed a license agreement with one of North America’s fastest growing steelmakers to build and operate a plant utilizing the Castrip thin-strip casting process. The new casting facility will have the capability to produce 500,000 tons of thin-gauge, high-strength sheet steel for local manufacturing and construction markets. Castrip has not revealed the name of the steelmaker or the location of the plant.
The independent EAF steelmaker will be the first licensee outside of Nucor to build a Castrip facility. Nucor owns and operates thin-strip casting facilities in Crawfordsville, Ind., and Blytheville, Ark.
“We are very pleased to add another partner to the Castrip family that is well suited technically and commercially to exploit this game changing technology,” said Frank Fisher, President of Castrip LLC.
The process equipment and technical services for the new facility will be provided by a consortium comprised of Siemens Metals Technologies, IHI, and Castrip LLC. IHI and Siemens are licensed exclusively by Castrip LLC to provide core equipment for Castrip facilities. The consortium has developed an optimized supply model for world-wide distribution of all new Castrip plants.
The new twin-roll casting and rolling plant will produce UCS (Ultra-thin Cast Strip) coils up to 1680mm wide, with gauge ranging between 0.8mm – 1.8mm. Start-up of the new Castrip facility is expected in early 2016.
Castrip LLC is a joint venture of Nucor Corp., BlueScope Steel of Australia, and IHI Corp. of Japan. The partnership was formed to market and license the intellectual property developed jointly by its three owners, related to the twin-roll casting of carbon and stainless steels. Castrip LLC currently holds more than 1500 patents and patents pending related to strip casting.
