Chess Grandmaster Alexandra Kosteniuk
Visits the CORUS Steel Making Plant on January 24, 2005

On behalf of all the Chess players in the world, and especially the ones who take part in the Wijk aan Zee tournament, we thank the sponsor of the Corus Chess Tournament, CORUS, for supporting chess, and for organizing a very nice visit to their impressive steel-making plant. (Click here for larger photo)

This is a view of the area around the CORUS plant, which include the towns of Wijk aan Zee, Beverwijk, Heemswerk, and IJmuiden. Note that Wijk aan Zee only has about 800 inhabitants, of which only about 10% work for Corus. CORUS has a wonderful strategic location next to the sea, which allows to minimize transport costs, since boat transport is relatively cheap.

This is a map of the general Corus territories. Corus makes about 7 million tons of high quality steel per year (out of a world market of about 1 billion tons per year). It can be very tough steel for automobile and aircraft manufacturers and it can be very thin metal, with added paint and/or aluminum, for drink cans.

The areas in red are the actual plant, very large. CORUS has about 10,000 workers. Production workers work 24 hours a day, in shifts 6AM-2PM, 2PM-10PM, 10PM-6AM.

From iron ore (purchased from South America and other sources), big slabs of steel are made, in length from 6 to 12 meters, and with width approximately 22.5 centimeters.They can have many different specifications according to the final product needs.

The steel slabs are heated to over 1000 degrees and go through this long building (over 1 kilometer long!) through various pressing-cooling-forming equipment.Even from the second floor corridor we could feel the heat when the hot steel passes by! (Click here for larger photo)

A lot of water is used to continuously stop oxidation and to cool the hot steel while it is pressed from over 20 centimeters thick to sometimes less than 2 millimeters in thickness!

The steel can reach over 70 kilometers an hour on this belt, and at the end is rolled up, sometimes still orange-hot (as in this photo)! Note that the later it is cooled in the process the more flexible characteristics it keeps, while if it is cooled earlier in the process it becomes stronger. Over 1000 different qualities of steel can be made, according to the needs of the customers.

Again, thanks to CORUS for supporting chess in the World!

Make sure to visit CORUS Chess Tournament Site by clicking here.

And of course Chess Grandmaster's Alexandra Kosteniuk site by clicking here.

Many photos of the Corus 2005 Tournament by photographer PUFICHEK can be found by clicking one of the categories below: