NLMK brings premium products to the Russian market

NLMK Group is bringing new premium steel products to the Russian market – thick plate low-alloy abrasion-resistant Quard steel and structural high-strength Quend steel, both designed for use in the manufacture of construction and mining equipment and machinery.

NLMK Group is currently in negotiation with several major Russian machine building companies for the implementation of steel processing methods using Quard and Quend steel plates in the production of construction and mining machinery. This development will enable Russian machinery and equipment manufacturers to significantly improve the operational and environmental performance indicators of their products by reducing the weight of machine components without losing any strength characteristics, and, as a result, compete on a par with the best foreign manufacturers using wear-resistant and high-strength steel.

“By offering premium products to domestic buyers, we are not only demonstrating how the Group’s European and Russian sites cooperate successfully, but also the efficiency of NLMK’s balanced business model. By offering wear-resistant and high-strength steel to Russian machine builders for the manufacture of component parts, the Company is helping to increase the competitiveness of domestic machine building”, NLMK Vice President for Sales Ilya Gushchin said.

For three years, NLMK Group has been successfully selling Quard and Quend plates in Europe, North America, and the Far East, as well as in the CIS. Buyers of Quard and Quend plates include leading machine building companies, such as Liebherr, Caterpillar, Volvo, JCB, BYG, and Metso. In the CIS market, BELAZ, the Belarusian dump-truck manufacturer, is one of the largest buyers of abrasion-resistant Quard steel manufactured by NLMK.

NLMK’s broad range of Quard and Quend plates is produced out of slabs supplied by the Company’s Lipetsk production site, using a unique technique involving quenching and tempering at NLMK’s Belgian Clabecq plant. NLMK Clabecq employs a modern quenching and tempering method enabling the production of highest quality low-alloy plates. The processing line for the production of Quard and Quend plates was launched in 2011. Total investments in the project exceeded EUR 100 million.

Abrasion-resistant Quard plates (hardness 400HB, 450HB and 500HB – Quard 400, Quard 450 and Quard 500 respectively, with thicknesses ranging from 4 mm to 40 mm and widths from 1,500 to 3,100 mm) are designed for use in the manufacture of construction and mining equipment, as well as for other types of special equipment and machinery (crushing and pulverizing machinery, excavators, dump trucks, bulldozers, hoppers, mixers, etc.), where the use of abrasion-resistant Quard steel may result in a 40% reduction of the weight of the structural component while increasing its volume by 5%, reducing fuel consumption, and reducing production costs by 45%.

High-strength Quend plates (tensile strength 700 MPa, 900 MPa and 960 MPa – Quend 700, Quend 900 and Quend 960 respectively, with thicknesses ranging from 4 to 50 mm and widths from 1,500 to 3,100 mm) are designed for use in the construction of bulk vehicle frames, bulk lifting and handling machinery, vehicle trailers, and other machinery where high structural strength is of the essence. The use of high-strength Quend plates reduces the weight of structural components by more than 20%, thus reducing the cost of production and increasing the performance of the machines.

NLMK is planning to expand the range of premium Quard and Quend steel products in 2014–2015 by adding Quard 550, Quend 1100 and Quend 1300.