1954
riva group
2004
4
Engineer Emilio Riva,
President of the Riva Group
The Riva Group, 50 years since its foundation, is an important presence in the steel and
iron world scene and forms a substantial part of the current Italian industrial system.
Running again through the experiences and successes that have led to the Group’s current form, I feel proud, as an entrepreneur, to have made an essential contribution to the
development of an industry that has helped to bring about a production, social and economic evolution in what is now defined as the “Italian miracle”.
However, if we have managed to reach this point, it is also because the commitment and
great passion that have always driven my own professional career, have been supported
both by the dedication and this same passion in the members of the Riva family, my
brother Adriano, my sons Fabio, Claudio, Nicola, Daniele, and my nephews,Cesare and
Angelo Riva who have defined and achieved with me the industrial strategies of the
Group, as also by the essential contribution of all the workers who have shared with me,
through their responsibility and professionalism, all the challenges and successes of
half a century of activity.
Today, the Riva Group is a dynamic presence, ready to meet the qualitative and service
requirements of customers that are now from many countries all over the world, but also
aware of the needs for environmental and social compatibility in its production sites. A
Group that has conceived and constructed its own development without ever losing
from sight the fact that the steel and iron market is an international market, in which, in order to compete with the best competitors, it is necessary constantly to encourage the
continuous search for technological innovation.
This publication hopes to provide a framework for the current industrial and economic
importanceofourGroup and to give testimonyto the roadwehave travelledtogether so far.
Emilio Riva
President, Riva Group
5
The Riva family.
From left: Angelo, Cesare,
Emilio, Fabio, Nicola, Claudio,
Adriano, Daniele
YEARS
OF STEEL:
A CHAIN
OF
EVENTS
MOULDED
OVER
TIME
6
Our Story
The RIVA Group is a set of
enterprises operating in the
field of steel and iron production and its associated
activities, and is the absolute
leader in this sector in Italy,
the sixth in Europe and
among the first tenth in the
world.
The position it has reached
at domestic and international
level in over 50 years of activity, is also the result of an
expansion policy that has led
to the acquisition of numerous companies to be restructured and re-vitalized.
The most important acquisition was that of the Ilva, in
1995, when it was privatised
by the Italian Government.
Heading the Group is the Riva family, the President and
founder Emilio Riva, with his
sons Fabio, Claudio, Nicola
and Daniele and his
nephews, Cesare and Angelo, who fill the key mana-
7
gerial positions. From 2004,
Emilio Riva, son of Fabio, the
first of the third generation of
the family Riva, has taken
part in the activity.
The Group’s Origins
The Riva Group started in
1954, when the brothers,
Emilio and Adriano Riva, established the Riva & C.
S.a.s. and decided to start
up on their own in an industrial business based on
working and trading in scrap
iron. It was supplied to steel
and iron industries in Brescia that transformed it into
finished products, mainly reinforcing bars, that the same
Riva & C. provided to trade
on the market.
In the summer of 1956, Riva
decided to move to the direct production of steel and,
in fact, already on 7 March
1957, the first plant started
operating at Caronno Pertusella, near Milan.
The plant was equipped with
an electric furnace, produced by Tagliaferri, with a
25-ton capacity per casting,
when the size of the largest
furnaces in Italy were still only 15 tons.
Timely knowledge of the
market and investments realised in the following years
led to a very rapid growth in
production, from 30 thousand tons in 1957 to 190
thousand tons in 1962, in an
historical period – that of
post-war reconstruction –
that favoured steel and iron
production.
The Growth
The nineteen-sixties marked
an important period for the
steel and iron sector. The
Italian companies should
face an increasing competition on a national scale and
later, in a European and international context.
This movement was accompanied by the extraordinary
development of particularly
competitive, small, steel
works, based on steelmaking through electric arc
furnaces and whose success culminated in the nineteen-seventies with the
introduction of a new production technique: continuous casting.
Continuous casting was, in
general, a great challenge
for the iron and steel industry
and, especially for the Riva
Group, brought about very
important results.
From that time onwards, the
small sized ingots that were
later laminated into semiproducts (billets) and successively into long products,
were abandoned altogether
and the billets were obtained
directly from liquid steel
through this new process,
which allowed the yield of
the production cycle to be
improved, reducing costs
and making it possible to win
new market shares.
In Italy, only at the Terni Iron
Works was vertical continuous casting being used, with
a somewhat low yield.
Emilio Riva was convinced
that the curving model being
researched on in Austria,
then could offer far more
substantial cost benefits and
for this reason turned to Luigi Danieli, owner of the construction company of the
same name, and to Renzo
Colombo, a designer already engaged in a feasibility
study on “curving continuous casting”, in order to cre-
Opposite:
Riva Acciaio: Lesegno works
(Italy)
Below:
Riva Acciaio: Malegno works
(Italy)
ate the new technology autonomously in Italy.
The collaboration between
these three, the industrialist,
the designer and the plant
constructor, met with success: on 2 June 1964, in
Caronno, the first continuous casting created by Danieli started operating, and
this was the first three-line
curving continuous casting
to be introduced into Italy.
It was precisely this continuous casting, thanks to the
cost reduction it made possi-
8
ble, that enabled the Caronno Iron Works to deal with
the 1964 crisis, i.e. the first
recession after the Italian
“economic miracle” that
led to the closing of many
factories.
In 1966, Riva made a first important acquisition concerning the Steel and Iron Works
of Lesegno, in the Province
of Cuneo, and became a minority partner in the SEII –
Società Esercizi Impianti Industriali di Malegno (Brescia), where Riva also took
Below:
Siderúrgica Sevillana:
Seville works (Spain)
over the management.
At the end of the nineteensixties, the Riva Group produced 300 thousand tons of
steel per year and was in a
position to offer a wide range
of long rolled sections, thus
opening the way to working
with foreign countries.
The three essential factors
contributing to the success
of the company were: its
flexibility and very lean structure, with minimum fixed
costs; its high level of specialisation that meant it could
deliver small batches in very
fast turnaround time; its human resource management
through direct relationships
and a “horizontal” structure
which encouraged staff participation and responsibility,
thus giving rise to a continuous process of improved
benefits.
The nineteen-seventies saw
the first huge investments on
the European scene, start-
ing from the acquisition in
1971 in Spain of a 5% holding in SISE (Siderúrgica
Sevillana), together with a
group of Italian, German and
Spanish entrepreneurs.
In the same year, Riva took
over the management and,
in 1978, after the progressive disengagement of the
other partners, full control.
In 1974, the Associated
Steel Industries (ASI) was
set up in Montreal, Canada,
a company working on the
selection and recovery
of scrap iron generated by
the Canadian automobile
population.
In January 1976, the Riva
Group moved into the
French market, taking out a
holding and assuming the
management of a small steel
works (Iton Seine) specialised in the production of
top quality reinforcing bars
(for which it obtained the
French quality approval
9
CRELOI), later acquiring full
control in 1997.
The world oil crisis in 19731974, with its considerable
increase in energy costs,
suddenly put the brakes on
economic expansion in the
whole of the western market, affecting all industrial
sectors. The net decline in
worldwide steel consumption registered in 1975 (-9%)
and the aggressive sales
policy practised by countries
outside the European Community, such as South Korea, Mexico, Argentina and
Brazil, put the traditional iron
and steel industries into a
state of crisis as their technologies were based mainly
on more complex integral cycle plants with more rigid
fixed costs compared to the
electric cycle that characterised technologically the
Italian small steel works.
The United States, and other
steel and iron areas, defend-
ed themselves, using protectionist measures, from
the aggressiveness of the
new exporters, who were
ready to sell below cost
on international markets,
in order to improve use of
their plants.
This crisis affected hardest
just those iron and steel
works that were the most
obsolete, especially those
consuming more energy,
that were still running in
those countries that had not
taken steps to make innovations in their production
instruments.
The Italian small steel works,
thanks to their production
and flexibility and high level
technological innovation,
were able to deal with the
situation, even winning market shares in the sector of
long rolled sections, and in
particular, in that of reinforcing bars.
In 1980, the Riva Group’s
10
Opposite:
Wire rod
Below:
ILVA: Genoa works
steel production reached
1.1 million tons (of which
61% in Italy, 28% in Spain
and 11% in France) and
the production of rolled sections reached 670 thousand
tons (of which 34% in Italy,
45% in Spain and 21%
in France).
The Group’s role as precursor regarding the commercial expansion of the small
steel works in countries outside the European Community is also noteworthy. Already in 1978, the Group’s
companies were the first to
sell steel directly in China, a
market that previously had
been exclusively Japan’s.
At the end of the nineteenseventies, while many iron
and steel groups turned to
the incentives provided by
the European Community
and national governments
for the dismantling of obsolete plants, the Group invested massively in the new
technologies: the levels of
automation in the casting
process grew, computerised plants multiplied, scientific research was speeded up and new possibilities
in scrap iron procurement
were explored.
At the beginning of the nineteen-eighties, more precisely in 1981, an important diversification at production
level was implemented with
the acquisition of the company, Officine e Fonderie Galtarossa (OFG) of Verona,
specialised in the production
of not only high quality reinforcing bars but also wire
rods for drawing.
Under the management of
the Riva Group, the company increased its steel production from 180 thousand
tons in 1980 to 740 thousand in 2000.
11
The Privatisations
In the nineteen-eighties,
in order to find a solution to
the serious imbalance between the supply of iron and
steel products and demand,
the EEC imposed a reduction in production capacity
on the iron and steel works
that had benefited from state
subsidies.
The Community authorities
in charge of the iron and
steel policy were forced,
therefore, to review the
ECSC industrial policy in a
more interventionist sense
and to adopt the “Davignon
Plan” for the iron and steel
industry.
The Italian public iron and
steel industry, IRI–Finsider,
together with other large European groups, received
considerable public funding.
This was how the first phase
of the EU restructuring of the
Iron and Steel Industry was
achieved, with the disman-
tling of plants all over Europe, the reduction of production capacity by approximately 30 million tons and
approximately 30% of the
labour force. In this context,
in 1984, the hot rolling mill of
the integral cycle plant Italsider of Cornigliano, where,
in 1953, the first “continuous
wide strip mill” in Italy had
been created, had to be
closed.
The remaining part of the
“hot” working of the unit was
broken up and transferred in
1985 to COGEA (Consorzio Genovese Acciaio)
whose management, with
relative majority of the
shares, remained in public
hands despite the entry of
capital from private operators (including the Riva
Group).
The Riva Group’s interest in
the Cornigliano factory
arose from the need to reduce its own dependency on
scrap iron, which was
increasingly difficult to find
in Italy because of insufficient supply and for which
it was becoming increasingly necessary to resort to
importation.
In 1988, the Group acquired
other shareholdings in
COGEA, so that an absolute
majority of the shares was
reached, leaving only a minority share in public hands.
The consortium was transformed into a Joint-Stock
Company, under the name
of “Acciaierie di Cornigliano”. With the acquisition
of the majority share, the
Riva Group assumed its
management.
It was in this way that the first
privatisation in Italy of an integral-cycle iron and steel
factory was achieved.
From 1989, this factory has
produced on average 1 million tons/year of semi-finished products.
The Cornigliano factory enabled the Riva Group to
extend its product range
to slabs (semi-finished for
the production of flat rolled
products).
Still in 1988, the Riva Group
played a leading role in a further important privatisation,
this time carried out in
France, with the acquisition
of a majority shareholding of
the capital in ALPA (Aciéries
et Laminoirs de Paris),
which possessed a production plant (electric steel
works and rolling mill for reinforcing bar) at Gargenville.
In 1989, the Riva Group produced 3.2 million tons of
steel (of which 2.1 in Italy,
and 1.1 in Spain and France)
and 2.2 million tons of rolled
sections, covering approximately 10% of the reinforced bars production of
the EEC.
Between 1989 and 1992,
the expansion of the Group
increased in countries with a
long tradition in the iron and
steel industry, such as Belgium and Germany.
In Belgium, the rolling mill
no. 3 of Charleroi-Marcinelle
was bought out, of which the
production capacity was
750 thousand tons/year and
a new electric steel works
was created to feed it. In this
way, the Thy Marcinelle was
born, which in addition to
consolidate the occupational
need of the area, represented also a concrete revitalisation of a region characterised by a deep crisis of
the iron and steel sector and
where a large Italian labour
force had traditionally been
present and which, now,
received from Italy also capital, technology and entrepreneurial skills.
At the beginning of the nineteen-nineties, German reunification and the privatisation
of the corporations of the
previous Eastern Germany,
enabled the Riva Group
to acquire two steel and
iron plants located in the region of Berlin: Brandenburger Elektrostahlwerke
and Hennigsdorfer Elektrostahlwerke.
Both were bought out in
1992 from the Treuhandanstalt, the German body in
charge of privatisation of the
ex-DDR companies.
In 1992, these companies
produced respectively 749
thousand and 360 thousand
tons of steel. In 2000 they
produced respectively
1,283,000 and 811,000
tons of steel.
In 1994, with a total production of 5.8 million tons of
steel and 5 million tons of
rolled sections, the Riva
Group had reached dimensions that placed it among
Europe’s leading players.
12
Left (top):
Riva Stahl: Hennigsdorf works
(Germany)
Opposite (top):
ALPA: Gargenville works
(France)
Opposite (middle):
Riva Stahl: Brandenburg works
(Germany)
Opposite (below):
Hellenic Steel: Thessaloniki
works (Greece)
Below:
Thy-Marcinelle: Charleroi works
(Belgium)
Expansion continued in April
1995 when the Riva Group,
as partner with absolute majority, bought from IRI, together with other Italian and
foreign minority partners, the
whole capital of Ilva Laminati
Piani. This operation indubitably represented the most
important privatisation in the
whole of the Italian Government’s disengagement from
the iron and steel sector.
This purchased company,
which combined many of the
companies controlled by the
publicly owned ILVA, produced flat non-stainless
steel rolled sections mainly
at its factories in Taranto,
Novi Ligure, Genoa –
Cornigliano – and Turin.
With the acquisition of Ilva
Laminati Piani (which has
gone back since 1997 to the
Below:
ILVA: Taranto works,
hot strip mill
name of ILVA), the Group
also acquired control
of companies producing tin
plate (ICMI), large-sized
plates and pipes (ILT) and
other companies dealing
with transformation and verticalisation of flat plates,
including Tunisacier, with its
works at Biserta, in Tunisia.
Acquisition of the Ilva Group
was of fundamental importance in the story of the
Riva Group. At production
level, this led to a leap forward in annual steel production between 1994 and
1995 from 6 to 14.6 million
tons and in the production of
rolled sections from 5 to
12.8 million tons.
Obviously, this huge enterprise required a long
process of re-organisation
extending up to 1996 and
essentially focussed on eliminating non-strategic investments, mergers and acquisitions, oriented towards
integrating Ilva into the
Riva Group, in addition to
simplifying the structure of
the Group.
This action allowed the
Group to triplicate its net
turnover (from 3,000 billion
lire in 1994 to 9,300 billion
in 1996) over only two years,
and to multiply by almost
nine times its net profits
(from 112 billion lire to 945
billion).
In 1996, the Riva Group
bought from the company
IBL, 100% of the Sellero
(BS) factory, which is now
Riva Acciaio.
In this works, in 1998, an investment in strengthening
the rolling mills for beams
was made, which led to a
growth in the productive capacity from 300 thousand to
500 thousand tons.
In 1997, furthermore, ILVA
bought majority control in
Greece of HELLENIC
STEEL, a company produc-
13
ing galvanised, tin plate and
cold rolled sections, while in
Italy it incorporated the Acciaierie di Cornigliano. In the
meantime, the Riva Group
had progressively increased
its own shareholding in ILVA
S.p.A., which on 31 December 1998 was shown as consolidated in the balance
sheet of the group leader RIVA ACCIAIO in an amount
equal to 57,85%. In 1998,
moving forward in the
process of company reorganisation, it was resolved
to merge and incorporate into RIVA ACCIAIO, the Acciaierie Ferriere of Caronno,
the Acciaierie Ferriere of
Tanaro, the Officine e Fonderie Galtarossa and the SEII.
Consolidation
and Present Asset
of the Group
In 1999, the Riva Group, implementing a strategy of improving the logistical structures linked to its own iron
and steel business, decided
to invest further in the shipping sector through its company ILVA SERVIZI MARITTIMI, purchasing a 250 thousand ton transoceanic
ship (the Arcturus), which
was equipped to transport
raw materials, especially
minerals, business that up to
then had been carried out by
third party ship owners. The
ship, like all the others, sails
under the Italian flag and its
crew is exclusively Italian.
In addition to this investment, over the last few
years, the Group has further
strengthened this sector
with the purchase of two
push boats and four lighters
of 30 thousand tons, for fin-
ished-products transportation, enabling an innovative
rationalisation of sea transport. The push boats become detached from the
main part of the ship (lighter)
during the unloading phase,
then it couples the lighter
that has concluded its loading and thus carries out a
new trip, optimising time in
the use of the boats.
These last investments in the
shipping sector have made
the Riva Group one of the
most important Italian ship
owners.
In 2000, the French Group,
SAM, was purchased with
its 8 production and transformation plants in 5 European
countries and employing approximately 1,500 people.
The SAM Group produces
1.5 million tons of steel,
70% transformed in the
Group’s works into wire rod,
electro welded mesh and
building products.
In the same year, two new
plants became operative.
They are the result of the investment strategy of the
Group, mainly aiming at im-
proving the environment
compatibility of the processes and at introducing technologies that increase transformation verticalisation in
order to obtain value-added
products.
These plants are the new
coke furnace battery no. 12
of the Ilva factory in Taranto,
which is equipped with the
most advanced systems for
the environmental impact
control, and the new hot-galvanising plant with a 40,000ton productive capacity.
These plants improve signifi-
cantly the production of high
value-added finished products of Taranto factory. They
are meant mainly for the
leading sectors of the EU
industries, such as the automobile.
Today, the Riva Group possesses 40 production and
finishing works, of which 22
are in Italy, where the main
part of the steel is produced
(approximately 61.2%) and
where approximately 66%
of the turnover is achieved,
but it also boasts strong representation in the interna-
ILVA: Taranto works,
hot galvanising
tional field with works in
Germany, France, Belgium,
Spain, Greece, and also
Tunisia and Canada.
The Group’s enterprises
preside over all stages of iron
and steel production
process, starting from the
production of raw steel
(made either with the integral
cycle or electric furnace)
through hot and cold rolling,
to the production of coated
steels and specialist
finishing.
Primary production and the
transformation of the steel
are integrated with other activities, synergic with iron
and steel, such as scrap selection and preparation
(a works in Canada and a
crushing plant in France),
the production of refractory
materials (5 factories in
Italy), the production of
rolling roll mills (one factory
in Italy), the shipping business (13 ships).
The company has a computer network of a capacity to
ensure that the managerial
decentralisation of the individual plants is necessarily
complementary with the
centralisation of the strategic
operations.
Information management
of data takes place in real
time in all the factories of the
Group.
This particular architecture
makes it possible to meet the
most complex management
requirements without delay
and to control individual orders effectively at any stage
of production or marketing.
BLAST
FURNACE
STEEL
Production Technologies
The Riva Group uses two
different technological
processes for its production
of raw steel: the integral
cycle and the electro metallurgical cycle.
The integral cycle is today
the most widely used technological production cycle
for steel (the second is the
electro-metallurgical). An integral cycle, iron and steel
works consists of a plant and
work complex, which, starting from the raw materials in
their natural state (fossil carbons and iron minerals), enables finished metallurgical
products to be obtained.
The fossil carbons, appropriately drawn from deposits
and blended, are distilled in
the cokery – made up of a
series of furnaces grouped
in batteries – to produce
metallurgical coke, a material that constitutes the chemical reducing agent in the
manufacturing process of
liquid iron in a blast furnace.
The iron mineral, taken from
the deposits, is processed in
the preparation plant which,
through crushing, riddling
and blending of the different
types of minerals available,
enables a material to be obtained that has the chemical
composition and granulometry suitable for loading into
the blast furnace. The finesized iron minerals are
processed in the agglomeration plant, where they are
transformed at high temper-
16
ature, for partial smelting
and sintering of the particles,
into a porous and resistant
structure. A variant of this
process is pelletisation,
which consists of transforming the fine mineral, in special plants, into balls of the
appropriate size that are
subsequently baked to give
them adequate mechanical
strength. In the blast furnace
the iron oxides, in the form of
mineral, sinters or pellets, is
transformed into liquid iron
as a result of the reducing
chemical reactions caused
by coke and carbon monoxide, in turn developed from
the combustion of coke with
hot air (approximately 1200
°C) blown into the plant enriched with other replacement fuels of the coke. The
liquid cast iron is moved to
the steel works by special
railway trucks, called torpedo wagons because of their
particular, elongated shape,
internally lined with refractory. Modern steel works in
an integral cycle metallurgical factory are equipped
with converters with oxygen
blowing in from above
through launching (LD
process), in which the liquid
iron is refined, i.e. deprived
of carbon and then transformed into steel. In the converter, in order to achieve
thermal balancing of the
process, calculated quantities of scrap iron and lime
are added, needed for the
safeguarding of the refractory lining and the metallurgy of
Left (top):
Ore yard
Left (below):
Coke unloading
Below:
Blast furnace
Right (top):
Quarto mill for plates
Below:
Pig iron casting from
blast furnace
the process. The liquid steel
poured into a ladle with the
addition of the iron alloys
necessary to reach the desired chemical composition,
is normally sent to the ladlefurnace processing station,
enabling the final chemical
preparation of the metal to
be refined and the bath to be
homogenised. The solidification of the steel takes
place by casting in continuous casting machines, in
which are included the ingot
moulds, constituted of copper moulds chilled by water,
with a section equal to that of
the product to be manufactured. Inside this the
process of solidifying the
steel begins, which will be
completed on exiting from
the ingot moulds, by water
sprays along the subsequent
sections of the continuous
casting machines.
The solidified semi-product,
cut to the desired length by
means of oxygen-lance
shears, is transferred by
rollers to the evacuation
cooling bed. The semi-finished products are then
heated in special furnaces
and rolled in normally specialised rolling mills, for
transformation into finished
products.
17
ELECTRIC
FURNACE
STEEL
The other technological production cycle for steel is
the electro metallurgical
cycle.
The heart of a steel metallurgical factory consists of the
electric furnace, which can
be described as a cylindrical
container closed by a lid
(vault) crossed by electrodes linked to powerful
transformers and internally
lined with refractory material.
Inside the electric furnace
the process of transforming
the scrap iron into liquid
steel is carried out. The raw
material, therefore, is represented by the scrap iron,
which is normally purchased
in a size suitable for immediate use or crushed and
sheared with special installations making it into the ideal
sizes for use.
Among the different types of
electric furnace, arc furnaces are those currently
most widely found. In these,
the thermal energy needed
is provided through the electric arc that develops between the scrap iron, the
18
smelted steel and the electrodes crossing the vault.
To speed up the process, a
technique of blowing oxygen
into the bath of liquid steel
through a nozzle is commonly used.
Through the electric arc, first
the smelting and then the refining starts, with the addition
of lime and other correcting
elements that give the steel
the temperature and composition required.
At this point, the ladle is
transferred to the continuous
casting machine and follows
the process previously described for the integral cycle.
In contrast with integral cycle plants, those using the
electro metallurgical cycle
are more widely found over
the territory, by virtue of the
raw materials being available
or by the location of the consumer market.
The balancing of the total
production between the two
different production cycles is
a specific characteristic of
the Riva Group.
Below (left):
Electric furnace
Below (right):
Scrap basket for charging
in electric furnace
Opposite:
Eight continuous casting
lines for billets
19
DAILY
STEEL
MODERN
STEEL
EVOLVING
STEEL
Products and
Applications
With an ever wider range of
applications, STEEL is constantly present in our daily
lives, making houses, work
places, cities and large infrastructures more modern,
functional and safe. Hot and
cold rolled sheet, coated
pipes, wire rod, reinforcing
bars, plates, welded pipes
for oil line pipes and gas line
pipes, beams, bars: these
are some of the basic products for the current stage of
development of civilisation.
The design of structures and
innovative objects, created
on the basis of the functions
they need to carry out, is expressed best through the
use of steel. Steel is constantly undergoing improvement, making it one of the
leading players in industrial
development. It also has the
prerogative of being fully
recyclable, which makes it
20
an extremely contemporary
material, in line with modern
environmental requirements.
The products of the Riva
Group, a group that is active
in the sector of carbon steels
and non stainless alloy
steels, are divided into two
large metallurgical families:
flat rolled products and long
rolled products.
Each family comprises a
huge range of products
to meet the most diverse requirements of clients and
consumers.
Opposite:
Coils
Below:
Billets
Flat Rolled Products
These include hot rolled
products, hot rolled coils,
cold rolled sheets, electrogalvanised rolled sheets,
hot-dipped galvanised
sheets, pre-painted sheets
(coated coils) and electrolytic tin plate, round welded
pipes, profile tubes specially
shaped (hollow sections).
Hot rolled coils, cold rolled
sheets and hot-galvanised
sheets concern a large part
of industrial transformation
sectors (building, domestic
appliances, cars, pipes,
etc.), which could not have
reached the current level of
development without the
characteristics of the new
steel alloys.
Tin plate containers (cans)
protect and preserve better
and for longer a huge number of products, mainly in the
food industry.
Hot rolled plates constitute
the base material for the
building of ships, off-shore
platforms, boiler-making
and industrial plants of primary importance. The plates
are also intended for the
production of the pipes for
gas pipelines, which now
have an irreplaceable function in the distribution of
energy at national and international level.
21
Long Rolled Products
These include wire rod, reinforcing bar, rolled bars,
beams, electro-welded
meshes and cold ribbed reinforcing bar in coils.
Large communication infrastructures (road and railway
bridges) and the construction reclamation of deteriorated historical buildings are
possible only due to the use
of steel in the structural parts
(beams, electro-welded
meshes, reinforcing bars).
The components of industrial machinery (for example,
transmission shafts), often
complex and articulated, are
obtained, moreover, through
the forging of steel bars.
With wire rod, the mechanical industry creates thousands of irreplaceable components in our daily lives
(screws, nails, bolts).
Flat Rolled Products
Quarto heavy plates
Applications
These are obtained through
a particular thermal-mechanical rolling mill process of
slabs in the “quarto reversible mill” equipped with
a190” width finishing “stand”.
On leaving the rolling stand,
an accelerated cooling system can complete the rolling
process in order to reach
high strength, tenacious and
particularly structures that
can be welded.
— Pipes for oil pipelines
(on-shore and off-shore)
— Pipes for gas pipelines
— Pipes for aqueducts
— Naval construction
— Metalwork
— Boilers and pressure
vessels
— Means of transport
— Earth moving equipment
22
Opposite (top):
Off-shore platform
Opposite (below):
Plates
Right (top):
Gas pipeline
(courtesy of SNAM)
Right (middle):
Aqueduct
Right (below):
Welded and coated pipes
Here below:
Helicoidal welding
Large-sized welded
and coated pipes
These are manufactured in
plants with very highly specialised technology, through
bending of plates and its
subsequent welding with
electric and high resistance
welding.
The production cycles are
developed to provide the
product with the most appropriate and functional
characteristics for the specific requirements of the infrastructure projects they
are intended for (on-shore
and off-shore oil and gas
pipelines, aqueducts, etc.).
The quality of the pipes produced by Ilva, intended for
operating in arctic areas and
very deep sea environments
is of particular importance.
Applications
— Oil pipelines
— Gas pipelines
— Aqueducts
— Collection and distribution networks for fluids
23
Hot rolled black
and pickled coils
These are obtained in specialised plants from continuous hot rolling of slabs
produced by continuous
casting.
In cases of specific surface
requirements, they are pickled in special continuous
plants that remove the oxide
that forms during hot rolling.
These constitute the base
family of flat rolling products
and can be formed and bent
at ambient temperature,
punched, welded in the
shape of medium and high
pressure pipes, and finally
cold rolled and coated.
Applications
— Gas bottles
— Boilers
— Pressure vessels
— Automobile wheel rims
— Welded pipes
— Metalwork
— Cold re-rolling
24
Opposite (top):
Gas bottles
Opposite (middle):
Pickled coils
Opposite (below on left):
Automobile wheel hubs
Opposite (below on right):
Hollow sections
Right (top):
Semi-finished thin sheet
for magnetic uses
Right (middle):
Electric engine
Right (below):
Cooking surface in enamelle
cold-rolled sheet
Here below:
Cold-rolled coil
Cold rolled coils
Applications
These are obtained through
cold rolling of hot picked
coils in special continuous
rolling mills, followed by reheating and flatness finishing (temper rolling).
These are used when there
is a requirement for characteristics of a surface aspect of high quality, that can
be deep drawn, formed,
coated with porcelained
enamels, etc.
After an adequate production cycle, they may have
magnetic characteristics
that meet the specific
requirements of the electromechanical industry.
— Domestic appliances
— Automobiles
— Pipes for furnishing
elements
— Heating elements
— Electric engines
— Barrels and containers
for storage
25
Hot-dipped galvanised,
Electrolytic-galvanised
and aluminised coils
The coating of these products is obtained by passing
cold rolled strip in a zinc
or aluminium bath in the
liquid state or by electrically
depositing zinc on the
surfaces. The sheets coated
with zinc or aluminium are
indispensable when
the basic characteristic of
the final product has to be
the degree of protection
and resistance to oxidation
and corrosion.
Applications
— Building industry
— Metal working
— Domestic appliances
— Automobiles
26
Opposite (top):
Car body in galvanised steel
Opposite (middle):
Hot galvanised coils
Opposite (below):
Catalytic muffler
in aluminised steel
Right (top and middle):
Building coatings
with pre-painted steel panels
Here below:
Pre-painted wound coils
Pre-painted coils
Applications
These are obtained from the
depositing of paint on a previously hot-galvanised cold
rolled sheet. These techniques provide the building
and domestic appliance industries with malleable steel
sheets in coils that are already perfectly painted in a
wide range of colours on one
or both sides.
This enables economies
to be made in the production
processes, eliminating, in
many cases, investment
in costly (from the ecological
point of view) post-painting
plants.
Makers of profile sheets,
panels, internal furnishings,
scaffolding, false ceilings,
casks, domestic appliances,
workshop doors, roofs – to
quote only a few of their uses
– thanks to pre-painted
sheets, have access to preprepared material that has
only to be shaped.
— Domestic appliances
— Building components
27
Electrolytic tin plate
Electrolytic tin-free steel
This is made from a thin
sheet cold rolled, coated
with a layer of tin
or tin-free steel, applied with
modern technologies for
electro-plating.
The use of containers,
adopted already two centuries ago, created in this
type of steel represents a
basic stage in the history of
the conservation of foodstuffs, together with salting
and freezing.
The mechanical characteristics of the steels used make
it possible to obtain can
casings from a single metallic disk subjected to deep
drawing to which the lid
is added.
Applications
— Packaging for foodstuffs
and other items
— Crown caps
— Industrial packaging
28
Opposite (top):
Tinplate can for tomatoes
Opposite (middle):
Crown cap
Opposite (below):
Container
Opposite (bottom):
Tin-free steel sheets with
cutting “scroll”
Right (top):
Reticular structure for large
covering with hollow sections
Below:
Elliptic hollow sections
Hollow sections
Applications
These are obtained in plants
specialised for continuous
welding of hot rolled strips,
profiled continuously
on plants that give the required shape to the hollow
section (round, square,
rectangular, etc.).
Within the range of products
for industry, the hollow
sections constitute a basic
family for very many and
different uses.
An important, modern use
of the hollow sections has
been developed in designing
structures defined as “reticular structures”.
It is possible to create large
buildings for commercial,
sports, recreational, transport, etc. use, with autonomous roofing that it
would be difficult to achieve
with materials other than
steel.
— Window and door frames
— Reticular structures
— Fire doors
— Scaffolding
29
Long Rolled Products
Wire rod
Applications
Obtained by hot rolling billets on specialised continuous mills, wire rod is a long
and strong wire of rolled
steel that is used in numerous industrial, artisan and
mechanical contexts.
The daily possibilities for using wire rod are numerous:
fencing, screws, nails, small
metallic items and other
components used also for
creative and restoration
activities.
— Nails
— Metal mesh
— Steel wire
— Wirerope
— Wire for electrodes
30
Opposite (top):
The complex structure
of a steel cable
Opposite (middle):
Wire rod coils
Opposite (below):
Suspension bridge
Right (top):
Applications in construction
Right (middle):
Reinforcing bar
Below:
Electro-welded mesh
Reinforcing bar and
electro-welded mesh
Obtained on continuous
mills through hot rolling of
billets, the reinforcing bar is
made up of bars or coils of
round profile of which the
surface is ridged or indented
to increase adhesiveness to
cement in building work. The
electro-welded mesh is obtained by electro-welding of
the drawn wire or reinforcing
bar, rolled or recoiled.
These products, in addition
to functioning as support to
structures, also have very
high elasticity, a basic requirement in order to give
buildings erected in seismic
areas an adequate ability
to absorb stress. The regulations, constantly updated,
for the construction of civil
buildings, especially in
seismic areas, and the standardisation of building practice have made the use of
these products irreplaceable
in the manufacture of products intended for the construction sector.
Applications
— Civil and industrial
construction
— Road, port and railway
infrastructure
31
Hot rolled bars
Applications
Steel bars are obtained
through a process of hot
rolling and can subsequently
be cold finished.
The numerous elements deriving from steel bars constitute the basic material for the
mechanical industry: gears,
transmissions and thousands of other components
that have to resist, sustain,
or transmit movement and
must not become deformed.
In this context, steel contributes toward concrete industrial development.
— Earth moving equipment
— Gears
— Transmissions /gear
boxes
32
Opposite (top):
One of the thousand applications
of the bars (upsetting flanges)
Opposite (below):
Steel round bars
Right (top):
Covering structure
Below:
Beams
Beams
Applications
Obtained through the rolling
of semi-products on specialised mills, beams are an
irreplaceable structural
element in modern industrial
and civil construction.
In fact, they constitute the
bearing element in large
buildings and large metal
structures for industrial
machinery. Thanks to this
product, construction techniques have undergone a
basic turnaround in the safety sector.
— Bridges
— Industrial building
— Civil building
— Road and railway
infrastructure
33
Other Products
Refractories
Applications
Refractories are ceramic
materials able to resist high
temperatures. Because of
this characteristic, refractories are used by a number of
different industrial sectors.
In particular, they are used in
the metallurgical industry
as internal lining of installations for all those smelting
and developing processes
of steel that are carried out at
temperatures in excess
of 1000 °C.
— Heating furnaces
— Blast furnaces
— Electric furnaces
— Smelting furnaces
— Ladles
— Cowpers
— Convertors
Above:
Tundish for liquid steel
distribution in continuous
casting plants
Left:
Internal lining of torpedowagons
Opposite:
Internal re-lining of torpedowagons
34
35
Rolling rolls
Applications
The rolls are tools used
in rolling plants for deforming materials. The casted
rolls, either mono-metallic or
bimetallic, can be created
by static casting or centrifugation.
Thermal processing following smelting achieves metallurgical characteristics
that are appropriate to the
use required.
— Iron and steel metallurgy
— Non-ferrous metals
— Non-metal products
36
Opposite and right (top):
Rolling rolls
Below:
Heat treatment of rolling rolls
37
LOGISTICS
Supply Chain
The logistics system of the
Riva Group is a compound
system using, in a complementary manner, both sea
transport – the greatest part
– and rail and road transport.
Efficient transport organisation, given the total volume of
freight moved – amounting
to approximately 60 million
tons per year –, represents a
pivotal problem for the
Group, both with view to the
successful outcome of its
production activities, featuring cycles that are completed in different factories, and
also in order to reach the final objective, which is one of
ensuring service to customers (in respect of delivery
times, etc.). The Group organises the corporate operating flow management,
from procurement of raw
material to distribution of finished products, favouring
sea transport, with the result, inter alia, of causing
less congestion in road
transport and with consequent benefits also from the
environmental point of view.
The most important section
of the logistics system,
38
therefore, is that of sea
transportation, which moves
approximately 36 million tons
of freight per year and uses
primarily ships of various
tonnage owned by the
Group: a trans-oceanic ship
of 250 thousand tons for
transporting raw materials,
in addition to four 28-thousand ton ships for coastal
transportation of metallurgical products.
Recently, two push boats
and four 30-thousand ton
lighters have been added to
the fleet, the latter using a
system by which the push
boat hooks up to the lighter,
forming a single hull that can
sail with maximum safety in
any sea in the world.
This highly innovative system
enables considerable savings to be made in the timing
of operations: in fact, while
a lighter is used in loading
and unloading, the push
boat is free to transport another lighter.
The Group, as mentioned
above, moves its freight also
by rail, combining with the
other two systems or in direct stretches, for a volume
reaching on average 6 mil-
Left (top):
“Sideracrux” (8,000 t)
Below:
“Gemini” (28,000 t)
Right (top):
Push boat (“Ursa Minor”) ready
to hook up to another lighter
(“Megrez”) just loaded
Middle:
Push boat and lighter hauled
on the pier of Taranto (30,000 t)
Below:
“Arcturus” (250,000 t) for iron
ore transport
lion tons per year. It should
be noted that in this sector
too, which often involves the
internal movement of individual production units (the
Taranto factory alone has an
internal 200 km railway network), sizeable investment
has been made in vehicles,
especially wagons that travel
either within the Group’s factories or on the national railway network.
Finally, with reference to
wheeled transport, which is
carried out mainly through
third party operators, the volumes moved by the Group
amount to approximately 18
million tons per year.
39
IRON AND STEEL
METALLURGY
IS A PRECISE
SCIENCE
Research and
Development
Research and Development
activities can be grouped into three main streams, representing the structural guidelines of the technological
and metallurgical development of the Riva Group:
1. Product development design, relating to the study,
preparation and industrial
production of innovative
products or those mainly adjusted to the evolution of the
market.
2. Research activities aiming
at the optimisation and innovation of corporate production cycles.
3. Applied engineering
projects.
40
The Riva Group uses both
the structures of factory laboratories for applied research and also some laboratories expressly dedicated
to basic research, out posted to Lesegno (metallurgical
processes and long product
development) and Taranto
(flat product development
and raw materials laboratory). Exchanges and synergies with the research being
carried out at universities or
private and public institutions with recognised traditions, are continuous and
fruitful. Work focussed on
cooperative research projects, benefiting from financing, in accordance with art.
55 ECSC, from the European Union is also intense.
This research concerns various themes and is structured on a multi-partner basis, involving other large
European iron and steel industries and research centres. For its study and research in the field of steel
metallurgy, the Riva Group
uses numerous and sophisticated equipment. In particular, one of the most advanced process simulator
available, three electronic
microscopes, equipment for
metallurgical, chemical
physical and mechanical
controls.
With reference to the activities listed above, the main
research carried out in the
field of Product Development for FLAT ROLLED
PRODUCTS is:
Simulators of metallurgical
processes
Hot rolling
Study of high-resistance
rolled sheets with improved
deep drawing quality and
mixed structure.
Study on hot rolled strip,
Dual-Phase for wheel rims.
New micro-alloyed anti-ageing steels with high deep
drawing capabilities.
Interventions in the production process are concentrated mainly on:
Dual-Phase steels for automobiles, products in
continuous reheating and
galvanising.
The development of a new
hot rolling cycle at low temperatures (lamination in the
ferritic field) for the production of steels intended for
cold rolling and tin plate.
Experimental activities
oriented towards qualifying
plates for pipes (gas pipelines) operating in SOUR
high-performance contexts.
Development of new hot
galvanising cycles for highresistance steels.
Applied engineering projects have developed mainly in two areas:
Cold rolling
and coated sections
Study and promotion of new
cold rolled and coated products, dedicated mainly to the
automobile, construction and
domestic appliance sectors.
Close collaboration with
customers on medium-long
term subjects, such as the
development of planning
platforms for the automobile
sector.
New steels for enamelling.
The solving of technical
problems arising with the
end user, such as fragility
of the steels for operations
New classes of galvanised
and pre-painted products for
construction .
41
of cold plastic deformation
and problems of the deep
drawing capability of highresistance steels in the automobile sector.
The main research carried
out in the field of Product
Development for LONG
ROLLED PRODUCTS is:
The development of wire
rods and high-resistance
reinforcing rebars with DualPhase structure.
New hot upsetting steels
with direct hardening.
Forecasting methods of the
mechanical and hardening
characteristics through operating systems with neural
networks.
Customer Care
QUALITY
AND
CUSTOMER
ASSISTANCE
The Riva Group management applies and maintains
an appropriate “System for
Managing Quality Assurance” in line with the qualitative requirements provided
under Standard UNI EN ISO
9000/2000, API Q1 and
the main guides for application in the automobile industry sector (AVSQ ’94,
QS 9000, VDA 6, ISO TS
16949).
To reach the objectives laid
down, the management of
the Riva Group has appointed a “Management Representative for Quality (methods and product)” with the
task of managing, monitoring, evaluating and coordinating the “System for Man-
42
aging Corporate Quality
Assurance”.
The Corporate Management’s decision with regard
to “Quality Policy” defines
the directives and objectives
to be complied with in the
following points.
Opposite (top and below):
Electronic microscope
Below:
Study on a possible deep
drawing of the steel sheet
Directives and objectives
1. Pursue continuous improvement in production and
qualitative results through
systematic adjustment and
prevention of any causes of
non-conformity.
2. Guarantee the commitment and participation of the
staff at all levels in implementing this present policy,
making information and necessary knowledge available
in the interests of the functioning and control of
processes.
3. Identify and document,
also through the operating
practices of manufacture
and control and technical
and managerial procedures,
all work processes and the
sequence of operations
necessary to ensure the efficient functioning of the
processes and controls on
the product.
4. Document the qualitative
objectives indicated by the
management and define exact control indicators, to be
used in evaluating the quality
of the results obtained, identifying the causes of any
qualitative non-conformity
and ensuring rapid and effective responses.
5. Guarantee that products
conform to the technical and
qualitative requirements
specified by Customers.
6. Measure the degree of
Customer satisfaction with
the quality and service.
7. Develop new products
and processes in accor-
43
dance with market expectations.
8. Carry out inspections
that this Policy, the System
for Managing Quality, and
other associated management systems are complied with.
9. Select and classify suppliers of those products
or services that may influence the final quality of the
processes and products.
Involve the suppliers, to the
extent possible of their
competence, in reaching
corporate aims.
Within the framework of the
policy of continuous improvement of quality, a fundamental element in the philosophy of the Riva Group is
Customer Service. This task
refers mainly to monitoring
the market, the development
and support activity carried
out by the technical assistants, and the technicalcommercial structures.
The technical assistants and
the commercial function offer every kind of support for
everything concerning technical-quality and product
supply requirements.
The development of steel
production is certainly linked
to the strong and determined
commitment of Research
and Development, but above
all to the continuous improvement of the production
processes, an indispensable
condition for genuine customer satisfaction.
Environment and Safety
THE
COMMITMENT
OF
THE RIVA GROUP
The Riva Group has always
considered it a priority, together with the production
and quality of its products, to
be committed in the fields of
ecology, the working environment and safety.
On the ecology front, the
policy followed over the last
few years has been addressed mainly to the creation of plants that are in line
with the best techniques
available, implementing, at
community level, whatever
was being defined with regard to the integrated prevention of pollution (Integrated Prevention Pollution Control – IPPC/BAT).
Consequently, a series of
plants with improved performance with respect to the
provisions of national regulations have been created.
The Group intends to pursue
this improvement policy by
applying all provisions from
the evolution of national standards on the definition of the
best techniques available for
the integrated prevention of
pollution, taking into account
whatever shall be defined in
the community context.
44
Left (top):
Cokeries
Left (middle):
Reverse osmosis plant for water
purification
Left (below):
Cokery gas desulphurisation
Right (top):
Dedusting of the ore
agglomeration plant
Below:
Water purification
At its main production centres, the Riva Group has put
into application the Environmental Management System
ISO14001,that has already
been introduced in the factories inNoviLigure and
Taranto.
As far as the subject of the
working environment is concerned, the Group’s strong
commitment is to be noted
both with respect to the standards of the sector and also
the implementation of reclamation programmes concerning asbestos and PCB
dieletric contents in electrical
transformers.
In particular, the Group promotes intense training activities, inasmuch as statistical
analysis of accidents caused
above all by risk-taking behaviour, has shown the importance of sensitisation and
training of personnel, also
with respect to the high turnover of recent years.
On the safety front, in addition to the planning and creation of plants that conform to
the criteria of the regulations,
the Group gives particular attention to the application of
the integrated system of safety management, and all the
activities this involves (inspections, safety meetings,
operating practices, etc.).
In order to ensure the correct
management of environmental and safety issues, the Riva
Group has the benefit of a
specialised technical staff
who provide support for the
whole production area and
are responsible for the environmental policies of the
whole Group at national and
international level.
The attention the Riva Group
gives to its relationships with
outside Bodies has led to a
series of agreements with local authorities on adapting its
presence to the territory’s requirements without prejudicing production activities.
45
Foreword
5
Our Story
YEARS OF STEEL:
A CHAIN OF EVENTS
MOULDED OVER TIME
6
Production Technologies
BLAST FURNACE
STEEL
16
ELECTRIC FURNACE
STEEL
18
Products and Applications
DAILY STEEL
MODERN STEEL
EVOLVING STEEL
20
Flat Rolled Products
Quarto Heavy Plates
Large-sized Welded
and Coated Pipes
22
Editorial Co-ordinator
Edizioni Olivares
Roberta Busnelli
Graphic Design
theredbox
communication design
Texts
Riva Group
Pictures
Riva Group and
Pino Musi
Print
Poggi Tipolito srl
Hot Rolled Black and Pickled Coils
Cold Rolled Coils
Hot-dipped Galvanised, Electrolytic-galvanised
and Aluminised Coils
Pre-painted Coils
Electrolytic Tin Plate
Electrolytic Tin-free Steel
Hollow Sections
Long Rolled Products
Wire Rod
Reinforcing Bar and Electrowelded Mesh
Hot Rolled Bars
Beams
30
Other Products
Refractories
Rolling Rolls
34
LOGISTICS
38
Research and Development
IRON AND STEEL METALLURGY
IS A PRECISE SCIENCE
40
Customer Care
QUALITY AND CUSTOMER ASSISTANCE
42
Environment and Safety
THE COMMITMENT OF THE
RIVA GROUP
44
46