Much has been said about the takeover, at the end of summer 2021, of Liberty Steel’s two French factories: the Ascoval steelworks in Saint-Saulve (North), and the Hayange rail factory (Moselle). The government had given the green light for the takeover by the German group Saarstahl, seduced in particular by its desire to produce green steel. A year later, the machine is well launched, and new prospects are offered to the employees of the two factories.
Three to ten times less CO2
Saarstahl is the only rail rolling mill in France, and since the end of 2020, the only group to manufacture low-carbon rails in France. Not only is steel no longer produced with the traditional method of smelting and blast furnaces: Ascoval has an electric arc furnace, which releases between three and ten times less CO2 into the atmosphere. But above all, we no longer use iron ore or coal: the raw material comes from used rails or scrap metal from the building or car wrecks. An agreement has even been made with the SNCF to supply its old rails to the German group. In Hayange, between 6 and 7,000 tonnes of rails are produced each week, i.e. 100 to 130 linear kilometres.
– Julie Seniura
The green steel blooms are therefore transported from the North to Moselle by wagon. The factory permanently has 30,000 tons of stocks. The blooms are heated to 1,200 degrees, and emerge from the bright red ovens, at the rate ofone every three minutes at the top of the pace. They are then directed to the rolling mills by a conveyor belt system, and will undergo several passages in different rolling stands, to be lengthened to the desired size, then shaped according to the rail model. Saartsahl Rail can manufacture around 100 different modelsmainly for classic train rails, but also for trams, metros, switches, etc.
– Julie Seniura
After cooling, the rails will be straightened to be perfectly flat: “For high-speed line rails, there cannot be more than three tenths of straightness defect over a length of three meters: this is equivalent to three hairs“, specifies François Cristofari, the technical director of Saarstahl Rail. Then each product undergoes a battery of checks, using lasers and ultrasounds in particular, to check that there are no cracks, no irregularities. All data will be archived for fifteen yearsto prove that no rail has suffered a manufacturing defect.
Each rail bears Hayange’s signature : next to the year of manufacture and the model reference, an H and a Y are engraved. The rails are now ready to be transported to their place of installation. Since mid-June, they have been particularly so on the construction of new metro lines of Greater Paris.
– Julie Seniura
New perspectives on a global scale
The Saarstahl group now perfectly masters the manufacturing process for these low-carbon rails, and new markets are opening up: “France has understood this well and is a driving force in the field, the Europeans are getting into it: our Belgian, German, Swedish and Swiss customers are more and more interested in it.“, explains Dominique Chiesura, the commercial director of the Hayange site. But green steel is also of interest to sectors other than rail. “The automotive industry in particular, but also other German industrialists“.”What is certain is that we are pioneers in this field, very few people have positioned themselves on these products“, adds Adrien De Bastos, the co-director of the Moselle site, in charge of production.
Ascoval has started to export its steel to Germany, for applications other than rail
To support this transition, Saarstahl has launched a major investment campaign to modernize Hayange and Ascoval: 7 million euros, deployed for a year, and which will be finalized by the end of this year.