UPDATED: Acciaieria Arvedi S.p.A. announced that they are going to build the world's first Arvedi ESP (endless strip production) plant for the continuous production of finished steel strip. This new line will be erected at the company's existing site in Cremona/Italy. Here, high-quality hot-rolled and coiled thin strip in a wide range of steel grades (e.g. HSLA/high-strength low-alloy and multi-phase steels) will be produced in an endless process from liquid steel to rolled good.

On the basis of the ISP (inline strip production) technology employed since 1992, the Italian steelmaker has developed the new Arvedi ESP process in which the cast thin slabs will be immediately rolled to strip and coiled in a continuous endless process.

The line layout can be subdivided into four main plant sections:

• The first covers the thin-slab-caster with liquid core reduction and three high-reduction stands at the exit of the casting machine serving for in-line rolling. The strand will enter the first stand of the rougher train at thicknesses between 70 and 90 mm, whereas at the exit, it will be reduced to between 8 and 20 mm.
• The downstream section comprises the induction furnace where the intermediate strip is equalized.
• Subsequently, it enters the 5-stand, 4-high finishing mill for further reduction. Starting from characteristic entry thicknesses ranging, dependent on the resp. steel grade, from 12 to 15 mm, this train allows the rolling of strip to thicknesses between 12.0 and 0.8 mm at widths ranging from 900 mm up to 1570 mm. 
  Then, the strip will pass through the 70-m long laminar cooling line. 
• The fourth section consists of the high-speed flying shear and three downcoilers.

The line is said to have a total length of 190 m.

The line is said to have a total length of 190 m. The line is said to have a total length of 190 m.