Baosteel Zhanjiang Iron and Steel has successfully commissioned a new two-strand ultra-thick slab caster supplied by Primetals Technologies at its Zhanjiang plant in Guangdong province, with start-up completed on 9 January 2026.
The new Caster No. 5 is designed to produce ultra-thick slabs up to 2,700 mm wide and 460 mm thick, setting a new benchmark for continuous casting of heavy plates. The caster is equipped with Single Roll DynaGap (SRD) segments, each offering a roll load capacity of 5,000 kN, enabling significant thickness reduction during casting and delivering improved internal slab quality.
With an annual capacity of up to 3.5 mln tons, the caster produces a wide range of steel grades, including medium- and high-carbon steels, peritectic grades, HSLA steels, and pipeline steels. Output is mainly targeted at demanding applications such as offshore structures, wind power, shipbuilding, and heavy plate production, with slab thicknesses of 300-600 mm and widths ranging from 1,600 to 2,700 mm.
Compared with conventional ingot casting or vertical casters-typically used for slabs of this size-the new bow-type continuous caster offers significantly higher efficiency and cost competitiveness.
Primetals Technologies supplied a full turnkey solution, covering engineering, key mechanical and electrical equipment, Level 1 and Level 2 automation, and advanced digital systems. A key innovation is a proprietary software tool that optimizes roll geometry at the design stage to suppress mold-level hunting. By reducing unsteady bulging, the system cuts mold-level fluctuations by around 50pct, enabling higher casting speeds and improved productivity.
The project further strengthens the long-standing partnership between Baosteel Zhanjiang and Primetals Technologies. To date, Primetals has supplied design and equipment for five slab casters at the Zhanjiang site, all of which have demonstrated stable operation and industry-leading performance.
Baosteel Zhanjiang is part of China Baowu Steel Group Corporation, one of the world’s largest steel producers, with integrated operations across multiple locations in China.
