Blast furnaces set new records

Russia-based steel producer and metals company OJSC Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works’ (MMK’s) largest blast furnaces set new records for monthly volumes of pig iron.

The company’s blast furnace No 9 produced 157 490 t of pig iron in April, beating its previous monthly record of 153 526 t, set in July 2013.

Moreover, MMK points out that blast furnace No 9, which has a working volume of 2 014 m3, was the largest blast furnace in Europe when it was built in 1964.

“During more than 50 years of operation, blast furnace No 9 has produced about 80-million tons of pig iron. In 2008, it underwent upgrade work, including installation of a Paul Wurth Bell Less Top, and, in February, a technical overhaul was completed, including a technical overhaul of the cast houses,” explains the company.

Further, MMK highlights that, blast furnace No 10 also set its own record in April, with pig iron output of 156 549 t, up on the previous maximum of 154 421 t in October 2015.

Blast furnace No 10 also has a working volume of 2 014 m3 and was commissioned in 1966. In 2008, it was equipped with a Bell Less Top charging system.

“Recently, a major environmental project was completed to install a dust-collecting system that minimises pollutant emissions and improves working conditions for the blast furnace workers,” MMK notes.

The company’s operations in Russia include a steel-producing complex encompassing the entire production chain, from the preparation of iron-ore to downstream processing of rolled steel. MMK turns out a broad range of steel products with a predominant share of high-value-added products.

MMK is one of the world’s largest steel producers and a leading Russian metals company. In 2015, MMK Group produced 12.2-million tons of crude steel and 11.2-million tons of commercial steel products. MMK Group had sales in 2015 of $5.83-million and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation of $1.66-million.

Last month, the company announced that its trading house continues to increase shipments of high-tensile steel used in the production of Tucano combine harvesters at German company CLAAS’s factory in Russia. As a result, the proportion of components used in these combine harvesters produced from Russian steel increased to 70%.

MMK started trial deliveries of its metal to CLAAS factories in Germany prior to the launch of this new production capacity in Russia. Under a contract signed in August 2015, MMK supplies CLAAS with cold-rolled steel sheet of particularly high flatness and rolling accuracy.

“We work with more than 40 Russian suppliers, but MMK is a key partner. Today, our Tucano harvesters are 70% made from high-quality Russian steel. “We believe that this is set to grow going forward. This will allow us to increase the localisation level, reduce our reliance on imports, and make CLAAS harvesters even more Russian,” says CLAAS factory, in Krasnodar, general director Ralf Bendisch.