25. May 2021 New development: the economical alternative to ingot casting for highest yield and best bloom qualities NPO Laboratory of Special Steels and Alloys, a company of PJSC Kirovsky Zavod, based in St Petersburg, Russia, has placed an order for a one-strand Vertical Semi-Continuous Caster (VERSCON) with SMS Concast, a company of SMS group (www.sms-group.com). Instead of using the classical ingot casting solution for small niche production, NPO chose the innovative and yield-optimized VERSCON technology to produce special alloys and stainless steel for industries with extremely high requirements on the quality of the final product, as in the automotive, aircraft, tractor and engineering industries.