Hot-rolled semi-finished products are obtained from conventional cast ingots that have rounded edges, big dimensional deviations and rough surface. The basic semi-finished products are slabs, blooms and billets. They are classified according to their shape and size. Slabs of rectangular cross sections are used as a starting material for flat product rolling. Blooms and billets can be of either square or rectangular cross-sections but they differ in size - blooms are bigger than billets. They are used for rolling of long products.

Cast ingots of weight up to 20 tonnes are charged into soaking pits where are heated or reheated to the initial rolling temperature (approx. 1200 °C). Afterwards the ingots are rolled in a two-high reversing blooming/slabbing mill (which produces blooms or slabs) or in a universal reversing slabbing mill (where only slabs are manufactured). The universal slabbing mill has an additional pair of the vertically positioned rolls for adjustment of the slab width.

The rolled semi-finished products are cropped at both ends and cut to length by means of cropping shears. Then they can be cooled on the air or charged into a reheating furnace for further processing. Blooms can be reheated and rolled into billets in a four-stand continuous billet mill.

It should be pointed here that conventional ingot casting is practiced only in the exceptional cases, due to common utilization of much more effective continuous casting facilities. Therefore, the number of blooming and slabbing mills systematically decreases.