The voestalpine Metal Engineering Division produces high-grade steels at its site in Donawitz, for processing into special rails for railway infrastructure, premium wires for the automotive industry, and high-quality seamless tubes for oil & gas exploration. The start-up of a new, fully automated continuous caster will allow the Group to further increase the quality of the steel grades which are used in the manufacture of highly advanced end products. The state-of-the-art facility represents an investment volume of around EUR 90 million and has an annual production capacity of one million tons.
In early September voestalpine will restart the small blast furnace in Linz which has been temporarily shut down since March, following the abrupt slump in customer demand caused by Covid-19. The gradual revival of demand, which is most pronounced in the automotive, electrical, and processing industries, has led to an increased need for high-quality steel grades, making this step possible. The first signs of recovery are also evident in the mechanical engineering and energy segments, for which the site in Linz also produces high quality steel products.
The automotive industry considers the steel and technology group, voestalpine, a technology leader in the production of ultra-high tensile auto parts that are also particularly light. The Group is now applying its lightweight construction expertise to railway systems as well. In cooperation with the Rail Cargo Group, the cargo subsidiary of the Austrian Railways (ÖBB), voestalpine’s Steel Division and Logserv, its logistics subsidiary, have developed “TransANT”—a novel design concept worldwide, specifically, freight cars equipped with a range of lightweight modular superstructures.