The Middle East-based Taybah Group, which works predominantly in the field of steel production, has awarded Italian production technology specialist Danieli with the contract to supply a continuous casting-rolling, compact micromill with the brand name MI.DA.

The plant will form part of the Taybah Group’s new greenfield project in Pakistan.

The new equipment will enable Taybah Group to enlarge its business in the Asian region by producing rebar for domestic and foreign markets.

According to Danieli, the plant, which is the first phase of a two-stage investment programme, will have a rated capacity of 500kt/yr of rebar and will start up in 2018. Phase two includes the duplication of the mill concept, enabling the facility to produce 1Mt of finished products and will come on stream in 2019.

On the technical front, Danieli claims that its MI.DA micromill is characterised by single-strand continuous casting-rolling featuring an ultra-high speed FCC ‘PowerMold’ caster, in-line billet inductive heating, bar quenching and tempering (QTB) system and a Direct Rolling Bundling system (DRB) ‘all arranged in an extremely compact layout’.

The Taybah contract represents the ninth order for Danieli’s micromill technology, the company claims, adding that the equipment will enable the new plant to be one of the most cost-efficient plants worldwide.

Danieli is also involved in the development of another Taybah project. Phase one of a 1Mt/yr meltshop operation in Abu Dhabi, UAE, will start up at the end of this year.

The MI.DA system is the latest generation of compact micromills and it targets regional markets focusing on a specific product and making extensive use of local scrap supplies.