New Hot Skin Pass Mill Starts Up at ArcelorMittal Mexico

ArcelorMittal Mexico has started up a new hot skin pass mill at its new hot rolling mill in Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán.

The hot skin pass mill has come into operation seven months after the new $1 billion, 2.75-million-short-ton-per-year hot rolling mill produced its first coil.

“We are very happy to reach today an important step in the advancement of our new rolling mill, thanks to the latest generation technologies in terms of flatness control. Our new HSM has a hot skin pass mill that allows us to guarantee our customers full compliance with the elongation tolerances of the sheet, with excellent flatness performance and high surface quality,” commented Jorge Nieto, chief technology officer of ArcelorMittal Mexico.

Company executives previously estimated output on the new hot strip mill to be 1.5 to 1.75 million tons this year with a run rate of 70% expected by year’s end.

The rolling mill is meant to produce high-quality low carbon, ultra low carbon, high strength low alloy, and API grade hot rolled sheet steel with final thicknesses of 1.2 mm to 25.4 mm. Hot skin pass mills improve the mechanical properties, surface textures, and flatness of the rolled steel.

By Laura Miller, Laura@steelmarketupdate.com

Laura Miller

Laura Miller is a reporter and editor for Steel Market Update. Since 2007, she has held various editorial and marketing positions with steel industry publications, associations, and mills. In 2021, after a five-year hiatus working across other industries, she returned to steel trade journalism, joining SMU in 2022. She is a member of the Association of Women in the Metal Industries and a past-president of the AWMI Pittsburgh Chapter. She holds a BA in Latin American Studies from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. She can be reached at laura@steelmarketupdate.com or 724-759-7869.