La Louviere
NLMK La Louviere
Located in Belgium NLMK La Louvière focuses on the production of hot- and cold-rolled coils for automotive industry, general construction, and pressure vessels manufacturers. Its production capacity is 1,681,000 tonnes of hot-rolled steel, 1,280,000 tonnes of pickled steel.
NLMK La Louvière is continuously expanding its range of products and steel grades of cold forming & deep drawing, structural and pipe steels, quenchable boron & high carbon steels, dual phase, ferro-bainitic steels and other advanced steel grades.
NLMK La Louvière’s development programme consists of investments in equipment combined with the fostering of a learning-oriented organization. The company listens to its customers and implements ongoing improvement plans at all levels of the business.
The commissioning of a second walking-beam slab-reheating furnace has helped increase production and improve surface quality. Meanwhile, the commissioning of a second pickling line and a second cold unit supports the galvanizing and electro-galvanizing plants at NLMK Strasbourg, as well as an expanding range of direct automotive customers. The company has continued to improve the quality of its products and the flexibility of its organization whilst maintaining competitive costs.
Image photography
By Viktor Macha in 2005.
Plant facts and figures
The plant have an annual capacity of 1650000 tons.
The following processes are conducted in the plant:
- Rolling mill
This plant produces the following type of products:
- Coils
Full description
Wallonian hot strip mill in La Louvière refers to more than a hundred and fifty years tradition of iron and steel production. The first smelter was founded in 1853 under the name of “Fonderies et Laminoirs Ernest Boucquéau”. After founder´s death in 1880, the plant was inherited to his favorite employee, Mr. Gustave Boël, under whose influence the works were greatly expanded.
In 1903 already, the first Thomas converter was installed and followed by first two blast furnaces in 19123. As the plant was severely damaged during the First World War the production was restarted in 1924. The production cycle included new coking plant, two blast furnaces, Thomas steelworks, open-hearth furnaces, rolling mills, iron foundry and forge.
The other two blast furnaces were built between 1930-1937.
A significant upgrade in current production was done in 1967, when two basic oxygen furnaces were put into operation. In 1972 the last blast furnace (no.6) was constructed.
In 1997 the Boël works became part of dutch steel company Hoogovens,the blast furnace department and steel making shop was shutdown soon after. Two years later the mill was taken over by Duferco Group, which sold the rolling mill division Russian company NLMK in 2011.