EoW May 2009

12 / 108

EuroWire – May 2009 10
english corporate news
Forty years of
continuous casting
Upcast® continuous upward casting is
forty years old. The Upcast story began
in the late 1960s, when casting directions
were typically downward or horizontal;
cast products were large in cross-section
and required further processing in
numerous downstream steps.
At Outokumpu’s Pori (Finland) plant,
research began into casting rod or
tube that was closer to the size of the
final product. The initial development
work culminated in 1968 with the first
successful upward test casting. Two years
later the first production line was installed
at the Pori foundry. The second line,
commissioned for an outside customer
for copper alloys, followed a year later.
The inventors of the technology were
convinced that the Upcast method
deserved active in-house development
and should be treated as a valuable
technological innovation. Their thoughts
were compiled into an internal report,
“What to do with upward casting?”
Based on the findings of the report, sales
and development of upward casting
technology was made into its own
business entity within Outokumpu’s
copper division called the JAVA-unit (later
renamed Outokumpu Castform Oy).
The unit’s work proved fruitful, with
21 lines sold by the end of the 1970s.
Landmarks of 50 and 100 commissioned
lines were crossed in 1983 and 1993
respectively. Strong sales were seen as
such a big threat to Outokumpu’s own
production activities that restrictions to
the supply of Upcast technology outside
the Outokumpu Group were set.
Coming to the 21st century, a new page
in the Upcast story was turned. First,
Outokumpu Group’s management
decided to focus on stainless steel
products and divest its copper products
division. This was followed later by an
announcement from the new owner
(Nordic Capital) to concentrate in copper
semis production and to sell or close
down all of its newly acquired technology
companies. At that moment Castform
Oy’s management joined forces with two
outside investors to ensure the continuity
of Upcast business activities and Upcast
Oy was created.
The Upcast system has come a long way
since its creation, and development
work is still ongoing. Upcast technology
continues to be a leading continuous
casting system for oxygen-free copper
and copper alloys rod production with
more than 170 units sold – an annual
capacity of around 1.5 million tons.
Upcast Oy – Finland
Fax: +358 207 577 401
Email:
Website:
The invention’s birthday is taken to be the day of the first successful test casting, 6 ▲ ▲ th November 1968