Jailaxmi Casting & Alloys Pvt Ltd, an Indian steelmaker, has awarded Siemens VAI Metals Technologies, India, an order to supply a 35-tonne vacuum degassing plant to its production plant in Aurangabad. The new degassing plant will be able to process around 110,000 tonnes of liquid steel per annum. This is the first order for a Siemens degassing plant since the recent development of a compact plant design. This enables projects to be implemented extremely quickly: the new plant is scheduled to be commissioned by the end of 2012.

Jailaxmi Casting and Alloys runs a minimill meltshop in Aurangabad, Maharashtra. The company has been producing special and alloy billets and bars since 2005 for the automotive industry and the regional construction industry. With the new vacuum degassing plant, Jailaxmi Casting and Alloys will further improve the quality of its crude steel in order to continue to reliably fulfil its customers' continually rising quality requirements.

Siemens will design and supply the entire mechanical and electrical equipment for the vacuum degassing plant. This includes the vacuum tank, the cover structure, including a simplified lifting device for the shop crane, the gas cooler and the vacuum filter. The plant will be driven by a mechanical vacuum pump.

An extremely short project run time of just seven months has been calculated. This has been made possible by a compact plant design. For example, the cover of the vacuum tank has been designed so that it can be moved by the shop crane. This eliminates the need for special lifting devices, transport carriages, and secondary plant equipment such as a hydraulic system and electrical drive systems. The elimination of these systems saves not only on investment and maintenance expenditure, but also reduces the overall weight of the degassing plant.

The Siemens Industry Sector (Erlangen, Germany) is the world's leading supplier of innovative and environmentally friendly products and solutions for industrial customers. With end-to-end automation technology and industrial software, solid vertical-market expertise, and technology-based services, the Sector enhances its customers' productivity, efficiency, and flexibility.

The Metals Technologies Business Unit (Linz, Austria), part of the Siemens Industry Sector, is one of the world's leading life cycle partners for the metallurgical industry. The Business Unit offers a comprehensive technology, modernization, product and service portfolio as well as integrated automation and environmental solutions covering the entire lifecycle of plants.

Further information about solutions for steelworks, rolling mills and processing lines is available at: http://www.siemens.com/metals