Recently, Baotou Steel(Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Union Co.,Ltd) officially launched the process upgrade and renovation project of its No. 3 continuous casting machine and the construction project of its No. 8 large billet continuous casting machine. This move marks a key step forward for the company in thoroughly implementing the national steel industry restructuring policy and accelerating its strategic transformation towards "general to high-quality, high-quality to specialized, and specialized to refined".

It is reported that the No. 3 continuous casting machine, which has been in service for 24 years, has produced more than 20 million tons of steel, repeatedly breaking production records during its operation and making significant contributions to Baotou Steel's scale expansion and stable high-yield production. However, with the deepening of the national "dual-carbon" strategy, the steel industry's requirements for energy consumption control and product quality have continued to upgrade. Faced with the new demands of downstream manufacturing moving towards high-end products, the limitations of the original No. 3 continuous casting machine in terms of energy consumption level and product structure have become increasingly prominent, making it difficult to meet the production process requirements of high-end special steel, and it has been officially retired from production.

Instead, a new No. 8 large billet continuous casting machine was built on the original site. Upon completion, this project will have the capacity to produce one million tons of high-end special steel billets annually, providing high-quality, stable, and reliable raw material guarantees for the extension and upgrading of Baotou Steel's downstream special steel industry chain.

This production line upgrade not only effectively addresses Baotou Steel's capacity shortcomings in the high-end special steel sector, promoting product structure optimization and increasing the proportion of high-value-added products, but also injects new momentum into the company's high-quality development during the 15th Five-Year Plan period. Simultaneously, this project will accelerate Baotou Steel's strategic transformation from a traditional steel producer to an advanced materials supplier and comprehensive solutions provider.