Dillinger Hütte is a steel producer in Dillingen, in the German Federal State of Saarland, and has a history stretching back more than three hundred years. The plant was founded in 1685, and was Germany's first Aktiengesellschaft, or joint stock company (1809). The first continuous-caster for slabs in the world was commissioned in Dillingen in 1962. A further machine, permitting casting of slabs of up to 400 mm in thickness - the thickest produced anywhere in the world at that time - was added, along with other new facilities, in 1998. In 2010, Dillinger Hütte successfully produced the first 450 mm thick slab - another world record. The principal equipment in the rolling mill now takes the form of two four-high stands, of which one is currently the largest in the world, with an effective r