During the planned maintenance outage at SSAB Special Steels in Oxelösund at the beginning of December last year, ABB replaced the control system for the power supply of the rolling mill. During the planned restart, a transformer broke down, as earlier communicated. After repair, during the restart of the powertrain of the rolling mill, there was another breakdown of one out of six similar transformers.

ABB is now renovating this transformer and is conducting a renewed trouble shooting of the control systems. This work is expected to last for three weeks.

The net production and delivery loss is estimated to total around 70kt, which will impact the fourth quarter of 2016 and the first quarter of 2017, with most of the loss impacting the first quarter. It was earlier estimated that the net production and delivery loss would total around 40kt.

“Very regrettably, the prolonged outage implies further impact on customer deliveries. We will continue to take advantage of SSAB’s flexible production system and where possible reallocate volumes to other production sites,” said Per-Olof Stark, head of SSAB Special Steels.

“It is a top priority for ABB to find a solution together with SSAB. ABB has mobilised all expert resources needed to find a fast and reliable solution,” said Johan Söderström, managing director, ABB Sweden.