Page 62 - Hub4 Magazine Issue 51

Recycling
Liberty House Group gears
up for green steel with new
Liebherr material handler
• Liberty House Group has host of initiatives to produce green steel in the UK
• Company identified need for new non-standard material handler to process
raw ingredients at Rotherham plant
• Liebherr LH 120 gantry-mounted material handler added to material
handling fleet after procurement process
One of the UK’s largest producers of speciality steels, Liberty House Group, is gearing up a pair of electric arc furnaces at its Rotherham plant to produce half a million tonnes of high quality end product. To cope with this increase in output and support the company’s bid to produce green steel in the UK, the Rotherham plant will need to process over 500,000 tonnes of incoming recyclable material. This operation requires a non-standard material handler and Liebherr was invited to take part in the procurement process, which resulted in Liberty House Group’s purchase of a new Liebherr LH 120 gantry-mounted material handler.
Formed in 1992 by Sanjeev Gupta when he was still at Cambridge University, Liberty House Group focused on trading in Africa and Asia before concentrating on the steel and metals industry. As a result of a series of UK industry acquisitions, Liberty House Group became one of the largest producers of speciality steels in the country with plants in England, Scotland and Wales.
Among the acquisitions was Speciality Steels, which is predominantly based in South Yorkshire. The business supplies speciality steels worldwide and prides itself on delivering exceptionally high quality material suitable for use in the aerospace, engineering and automotive industries. Its Rotherham site is among the largest and has a pair of electric arc furnaces that are being geared up to produce half a million tonnes of high quality end product in various grades over the next few years.
To cope with this increase in output and to support Liberty House Group’s bid to produce green steel in the UK, the plant will need to process over 500,000 tonnes of incoming recyclable material that is fed into the plant in specific mixes depending on the type of material being produced.
The raw ingredients for each batch are loaded into a scrap basket before being tipped into the furnace. Each scrap bin weighs over 50 tonnes when empty, is loaded with over 100 tonnes of raw material, measures over 4 m in height and needs to be carried around on specially designed heavy-duty transporters. The company required a new material handler for this operation but this is not a ‘standard’ material handling task.
Ryan Stancil is Mechanical Section Engineer at the Rotherham plant and was instrumental in the procurement process that led to a new Liebherr LH 120 gantry- mounted material handler being added to the on-site material handling fleet. ‘We have never had a Liebherr on our fleet before. I have always believed, and been told, that they are by far the best machines for this application but are extremely expensive. This cost has been prohibitive in the past, but we decided to give them an opportunity to be involved in the tender process along with the Group’s regular suppliers.’
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www.hub-4.com July 2018 - Issue 51