Mukand Sumi Special Steel Ltd. (MSSSL), a joint venture of India’s Mukand Ltd. and Japan’s Sumitomo Corp., placed an order with Germany’s SMS group to supply a modern special-bar-quality (SBQ) rolling mill to produce straight round and hexagon bars, wire rod and bar-in-coils. The new mill will be installed near Hospet in Karnataka, India, adjoining Mukand’s existing steelmaking facilities. MSSSL plans to export specialty steels across the globe from this facility. Commissioning of the new SBQ mill is scheduled for the second quarter of 2020.

The mill will initially have an annual capacity of 400,000 tons, but it is prepared for a capacity increase to 600,000 tons per year in a second phase. It includes a walking-beam reheating furnace with a capacity of 75 tons per hour in the first stage and 110 tons per hour in a second stage.