France’s Obut has been producing steel balls weighing around 700 grams each for popular sport Pétanque since 1955. In an effort to improve production of boule balls at its headquarters in Saint-Bonnet-Le-Château, the company ordered a 1,300-ton forging press from Farina. The forging press replaces two lines with a press force of 600 and 800 tons respectively, which are becoming obsolete. The future line, which also includes a transfer and a furnace, will form a half shell every 2 seconds. The starting material for the boule balls, which have a diameter of just over 2.75 inches (7 cm), are steel rods cut into sections that a press first forms into discs and then into half shells. These are then welded together, machined and polished to a mirror finish.

Siderforgerossi Group S.p.A., a global manufacturer of forged products and a portfolio company of KPS Capital Partners, completed the acquisition of Grupo Euskal Forging S.L. and its subsidiaries. Euskal Forging is a manufacturer of forgings and seamless rolled rings, including rings greater than 8 meters in diameter, serving the wind power and mining industries. Headquartered in Irura, Spain, the company operates three manufacturing facilities and has approximately 170 employees. Veneto, Italy-headquartered Siderforgerossi is a vertically integrated manufacturer of rolled and forged products with capabilities across the manufacturing spectrum, including open-die and closed-die forging. 

Bharat Forge Ltd., along with its subsidiary BF Industrial Solutions Ltd. (together referred to as Bharat Forge), successfully completed the previously announced acquisition of JS Autocast Foundry India Private Ltd. (JS Auto). The acquisition significantly enhances Bharat Forge’s capabilities and addressable market segments, both domestically and in export markets. JS Auto recently received approval to expand existing foundry operations at one of its two locations in India.

Hyundai Motor Group (HMG) is increasing its investment to more than $10 billion in the United States by 2025 to further its goal to lead sustainable and smart mobility solutions. The group’s investment plans are designed to accelerate innovation and mobility electrification. The move supports carbon-neutrality goals with new technologies and contributes to manufacturing in the United States. As part of the investment, HMG announced a $5.54 billion plan to establish its first dedicated EV and battery manufacturing facility in Georgia to build a range of electric vehicles. The plant, located on 2,923 acres in Bryan County, will break ground in early 2023 and is expected to begin commercial production in the first half of 2025 with an annual capacity of 300,000 units.

Italian ring and bevel gear manufacturer Molla has been evaluating forging presses from Schuler's subsidiary Farina to produce its products for use in trucks and construction and agricultural machinery. Following successful preliminary acceptance, a 10,000-ton line will be on its way to the company’s facility in Solbiate Arno this summer. Molla currently operates a 6,000-ton press and a 1,000-ton press. The three machines form a forging cell for preforming, deburring and finish forging of rings. This cell will increase Molla’s production capacity in preparation for future market requirements. 

Nucor Corp. is partnering with the University of Kentucky (UK) Research Foundation to test a carbon dioxide (CO₂) capture system at Nucor Steel Gallatin. This is one of 12 research projects being funded by a Department of Energy grant to advance point-source carbon-capture and storage technologies that can capture CO₂ emissions generated from natural gas power plants and industrial facilities that produce commodities like steel. More than 50 industry and university experts are working together to tackle the difficult challenge of applying carbon-capture and sequestration techniques to an electric-arc furnace (EAF) steelmaking process. Once this pilot is complete, Nucor and UK will have a better understanding of the costs and effectiveness of carbon-capture technology for flue gas with low CO₂ content and the feasibility of replication of this technology at other EAF steel mills.

SMS group has been chosen by Jindal Stainless Ltd. (JSL) to build a new blast furnace at its Kalinganagar unit in India. The blast furnace will have a production capacity of 2 million tons of hot metal per year. The plant will serve both existing downstream steelmaking facilities and future facilities. The blast furnace will be the first in JSL’s new stainless steel complex, which is currently based on electric-arc furnace (EAF) technology, and will be the core of JSL’s Kalinganagar plant expansion. Commissioning of the plant is expected by the end of 2023. The project is another step toward India’s goal of bringing the country’s domestic production to 300 million tons by the end of the decade.

Global aluminum company Hydro broke ground on its aluminum recycling plant in Cassopolis, Mich. Hydro will invest approximately $150 million in the facility, which will produce 265 million pounds of aluminum extrusion ingot per year and create approximately 70 new jobs. When completed, the plant will help Hydro reach its goal of doubling recycling of post-consumer aluminum by 2025. Applications for the aluminum produced in Cassopolis will be used for critical automotive applications and building system applications.

Tenova was awarded a contract from Tosyali for the supply of an electric-arc furnace (EAF) for its plant in Bethioua, Algeria. This will be the second EAF that Tenova has supplied to this site and is a key component of Tosyali’s current expansion project. The new EAF will be designed to be almost identical to the current EAF, which was supplied in 2016. It will process 2.5 million metric tons of DRI pellets per year to produce hot-rolled coil (HRC). A charging system will allow charging and melting of more than 12 tons of HDRI (hot DRI) per minute. The composition of the DRI produced and processed at the Bethioua site is adjusted by blending iron concentrates from different sources to achieve the most profitable balance between cost of raw materials and energy.

Sheffield Forgemasters announced a breakthrough in the industrialization of electron-beam welding (EBW) for thick-section materials. Using EBW, the company weld-joined two 200-mm-thick (8-inch-thick), 3-meter-diameter (9-foot-diameter) forged vessel sections of nuclear-grade steel. The weld, equivalent to approximately 10 meters (32 feet) in length, was completed in a single pass and in a dramatically short timeframe. The weld was completed in 140 minutes with no reportable defects shown in preliminary nondestructive testing (NDT). A weld of this kind would typically take months and include numerous stages of NDT and heat treatment.