Our mills

ArcelorMittal Sestao

About ArcelorMittal Sestao

Sestao is integrated in the so called “Great Bilbao”, the main industrial area in the north of Iberia peninsula. 

Our ArcelorMittal Sestao plant is located on the left side bank of the Bilbao river, which is navigable for vessels up to 5,000 tonnes and which is also connected to Bilbao port in case of higher volume shipments. Maritime logistic is used for scrap intake flows and also for coils shipment deliveries. Sestao is also well connected by road and rail, to reach any customer in the world.

ArcelorMittal Sestao is a new generation steel plant which is technologically advanced and at same time, collecting more than 100 years of steel knowledge from the further steel industry history in the area.
These facilities installed at Sestao are considered as Best Available Technologies (BATs) in their design and construction, which enables to manufacture a steel coil of up to 28 tonnes, in less than three hours.

• Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) recycling scrap, fed by DC electrical power source, in order to avoid flicker effect and reducing impact to the electrical grid.

• Compact Strip Production (CSP) process offers energy consumption reduction, as the slabs from continuous caster go forward immediately to the rolling mill without heat losses.

The site has a capacity of 1,800,000 tonnes of hot rolled steel coils and 600,000 tonnes of pickled coils per year with a high level of flexibility and fast lead times.

Since September 2016, ArcelorMittal Sestao plant began a new Specialities Product Business Plan in order to adapt the production volumes to the adverse steel market scenario. Current production volume is 300,000 tonnes per year of hot rolled coils and 160,000 tonnes per year of pickled and oiled coils (mainly specialties). The Specialties plan is based on emerging steels productions and it is supported by a great R&D activity.

Within the same purpose, ArcelorMittal Basque Country Research and Development Centre has been moved to Sestao facilities. The ArcelorMittal Sestao plant has been nominated as a dedicated R&D plant and, in the same way, Basque Country Research and Development Centre has been updated to an industrial plant dedicated tool, in order to develop the further specialty steel market.

In the beginning of 2020 the decision has been taken to increase the production capacity of hot rolled coils to 400,000 tonnes in order to improve the industrial kep parameters. 

Installations

• 1 scrap yard for more than 100,000 tonnes scrap capacity
• 2 direct current D/C Electric Arc Furnaces (130 MVA each)
• 2 ladle furnaces for a 132 tonnes heat size
• 2 fume treatment plants and a water treatment plant
• 2 continuous casting lines for thin slab (CSP)
• 2 tunnel furnaces
• 7 stand finishing-rolling mill
• 2 coilers
• auxiliary shops: rolls machining shop, ladle and tundish refractory shop, mechanical and electrical shops
• 1 continuous pickling line
• hydrochloric acid regeneration plant and neutralisation plant

Products

ArcelorMittal Sestao offers a wide range of products:

• Steel for commercial and structural applications, even in the low thickness range (< 1.5 – 1 mm) for hot rolled coils or with restricted thickness tolerances (up to ¼ of EN standards)
• Floor plates with European pattern
• High Strength Low Alloyed (HSLA) Steels and Ultra High Strength Steels (UHSS) up to S700MC
• Steels resistant to atmospheric corrosion: Indaten^® (Corten),…
• Dual phase steels
• Ferritic bainite steels
• High carbon wide product range (up to C100 S)
• High carbon and alloyed steels (several grades in the portfolio)
• Quenchable Boron steels
• New Austenitic and Ceramic composite grades are in the initial stage of their development to enrich AM portfolio of Breakthrough solutions

Markets 

ArcelorMittal Sestao products are used in the automotive, general industry and the construction sectors.
ArcelorMittal Sestao is a regular supplier for many steel service centres, pipes and tubes manufacturers, re-rollers, stockists, profilers, industrial storage, building and appliances customers. The new specialties plan offers to customers the flexibility of a greater portfolio range, focusing in those customer requirements that are not often found in other plants.

Specific dimensions & performances

ArcelorMittal Sestao produces hot rolled steel coils between 845 and 1,550 mm wide and 1 to 14 mm thick.
Sestao’s pickling line produces pickled steel coils between 845 and 1,550 mm wide and 1 to 4 mm thick.
The thin cast slab process allows ArcelorMittal Sestao to achieve an outstanding gauge performance compared with traditional mills, as well as very consistent properties along the coil.