BARANOVICHI, 5 November (BelTA) – Baranovichi Machine-Tool Plant has reopened a foundry after modernization, BelTA has learned.
The project to introduce high-performance high-precision casting using high-strength and grey cast iron was launched in Q1 2019 and was completed ahead of schedule. The total cost is Br16 million, with Br7 million granted by the Belarusian Innovative Foundation (BIF) and the rest provided by Baranovichi Machine-Tool Plant's parent company ZAO Atlant.
Belarusian First Deputy Industry Minister Sergei Gunko said: “Casting quality requirements grow higher every year, particularly in automobile engineering. The project was meant to improve technical parameters and the output of the foundry.” The official remarked that modernization proceeded without halting the operation of the existing manufacturing facilities and Baranovichi Machine-Tool Plant honored all the contract commitments to partners.
The upgraded foundry will be able to expand the choice of cast iron products in Belarus and abroad. Once it reaches the designed output capacity, the foundry's output will rise by 40%.
ZAO Atlant Director General Dmitry Sokolovsky said: “The modernized foundry now makes 22,000 tonnes of cast iron. We use some to make compressors for Atlant refrigerators. We sell the rest, about 16,000 tonnes. High-strength cast iron products sell well in Russia, Ukraine, and European countries. Belarusian companies also place their orders. We couldn't fulfill all the orders using the old equipment. Now the output capacity of the modernized foundry is booked for virtually one year.”
Chairman of the State Science and Technology Committee of Belarus Aleksandr Shumilin and Deputy Chairman of the Brest Oblast Executive Committee Dmitry Gorodetsky also congratulated Baranovichi Machine-Tool Plant personnel on reopening the modernized foundry.
Baranovichi Machine-Tool Plant was commissioned 35 years ago. The local economic mainstay now employs 1,370 people and accounts for nearly 11% of Baranovichi's industrial output. The company's products are known well in Belarus and abroad. In addition to high-strength cast iron and grey cast iron products the company makes process equipment for recycling plastics, for manufacturing household appliances, for metal cutting, systems for the transport mechanization of pipe rolling enterprises, welded metal products, and other kinds of merchandise.
