TATA Steel has completed an upgrade of its corrosion resistant coating line in South Wales to improve and expand the company’s range of high value, high formability automotive steels.
The Zodiac plant is TATA Steel’s galvanizing line at Llanwern. Increasing the size of the radiant tube section of the line’s annealing furnace, where the steel is given the required mechanical properties ahead of the zinc coating process, has enabled an increase in capacity of about 25% to 500,000 tonnes per year.
Adding a second roll size to the temper mill, which levels the steel strip after coating, has allowed the move into high formability steels, while retaining the line’s ability to produce high strength and dual phase steels.
This GBP 3.6 million investment follows the relighting of the No 4 blast furnace at Port Talbot and the restart of the hot strip mill and pickling line at Llanwern.
