2005-2006 Financial Statements and Management Report

22
IN MEXICO, HIGH-VALUE
PRODUCTS ARE BEING
ADDED TO THE RANGE.
ThyssenKrupp Nirosta completed the expansion of the EBOR service center in Sachsenheim that was
begun in the prior year. The new production shop with cut-to-length and grinding/brushing facilities
allows us to maintain our focus on the high-margin processing business, in particular supplying stainless
flat products to industrial customers engaged in the manufacture of white goods such as refrigerators
and washing machines.
The extensive investment program at ThyssenKrupp Acciai Speciali Terni was aimed at strengthening
the stainless business, particularly at the Italian location Terni. The largest single project was an
advanced 20-high cold rolling stand for the Terni mill. The stand was ordered in mid-2005 and after
commissioning in October 2006 replaced two older stands. It will allow ThyssenKrupp Acciai Speciali
Terni to manufacture more products with higher value-added and so increase its proportion of highermargin
end customer business. Also at Terni, construction began of a new annealing/pickling line for
stainless hot-rolled strip which will have a capacity of around 650,000 tons per year and replace several
existing lines. The end product is pickled hot-rolled stainless in widths up to 1,570 mm and thicknesses
of 1.5 to 7.0 mm. It is intended as a starting material for our own cold rolling mills and will also be
supplied to end users. Production is scheduled to begin in the 3rd quarter 2007. The conversion of
the former service center CS Inox in Terni into a mill finishing department is largely complete, as is the
construction of a paint line for producing stainless steel strip with the newly developed transparent
coating SilverIce ® UV for highly demanding applications.
At Deutsche Titan in Essen, a company in the ThyssenKrupp Acciai Speciali Terni business unit, we
built a further vacuum arc furnace and thus significantly expanded our production capacity for titanium
ingots.
In August 2006, ThyssenKrupp Mexinox started operation of a bright annealing line in San Luis
Potosi (Mexico) which had previously been used in the Terni plant of ThyssenKrupp Acciai Speciali
Terni. In the space of only 18 months the line was dismantled at its original location, shipped to
Mexico, completely refurbished and rebuilt. The investment in this additional production line and the
associated expansion of finishing capacities will allow ThyssenKrupp Mexinox to increase its capacities
and widen its product range, particularly in the area of higher-value products. Annual production will
increase by around 30,000 to roughly 250,000 metric tons of stainless cold-rolled. This measure will
significantly strengthen our position on the important stainless steel markets in Central and particularly
North America.
ThyssenKrupp VDM intends to expand in highly profitable segments of the nickel alloy market,
particularly in superalloys, i.e. high-performance materials with special corrosion and heat resistance
properties. As part of this, remelting capacities in the Unna mill are being expanded. To reduce our
dependence on outside manufacturers in the long products area, we are also building a new forging
line at this location. The new line will start operation in 2008.