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With production topping 2.79Mt in 1998, the Mexican minimill company, Hylsa is hardly 'mini' in output but does warrant the name in terms of its outlook on innovative technology. In the past five years, it has started up a CSP thin slab casting/rolling line, a Fuchs EAF with finger shaft scrap preheater, a DC twin electrode Danieli furnace and a new HYL DRI module with hot pneumatic transport to the EAFs.
Hylsa is the steelmaking division of Hylsamex which also contains three other divisions; Galvak, making galvanised and painted strip; Acerex, a steel processing joint venture with USA Worthington, and Hylsabek, a joint venture with Bekaert of Belgium for wire products.
The Flat Products Division of Hylsa is an integrated minimill producing DRI from ore mined in Mexico and domestic natural gas, using its in-house developed HYL process. The DRI is converted into steel in one of four modern electric arc furnaces and cast to slab in an SMS thin slab caster, or to ingot for its No 1 hot strip mill. About 60% of output goes to the two CSP thin slab casters where it is rolled to hot strip on a directly linked 6-stand 1375mm (54") strip mill.
The Long Products Division has two plants in Monterrey (one shared with Flat Products) and one in Puebla. A Fuchs shaft furnace with finger preheater was started up five years ago on the shared Monterrey site along with a ladle station and degasser station. At Puebla, the company has one DRI plant, one EAF and a 5strand billet caster, while in Planta Norte (Monterrey) it has another EAF and a 5-strand billet caster.
Hylsa's Flat Products Division is located in Monterrey, in the north of Mexico, about two hours drive from the US border. The company has been in existence for 55 years, initially being set up by the Monterrey brewery to manufacture bottle caps. Indeed, until recently, the brewery supplied each Hylsa employee with a free crate of beer each month.
In 1957, Hylsa commissioned the first generation HYL DRI module to produce direct reduced iron from lump ore using reformed natural gas by a batch process. The technology advanced to the much larger HYL III production module that operates as a continuous...