Metinvest Launches a State-of-the-art Blast Furnace in Yenakiieve

2011-12-07

Dec. 6, 2011 - Metinvest, the international vertically integrated steel and mining group of companies, commissions modern facility of BF-3 (blast furnace) at its Yenakiieve Iron and Steel Works (Yenakiieve Steel). This is to add 1.2 Mtonnes to the plant's annual hot metal production capacity, which will eventually make up 3.0 Mtonnes of pig iron per year. Commissioning of the new BF-3 has been carried out in line with the Technological Strategy of Metinvest's steelmaking assets development. The project investments amount to more than $220 mln.
The new BF-3 is one the largest plant's facilities and differs much from the other two blast furnaces already operating at Yenakiieve Steel. The new blast furnace, for the first time in Ukrainian steel industry, applies a number of the state-of-the-art technologies and the latest industrial control systems. All the innovative solutions are designed to improve performance of the unit and reduce operational costs. As such is the BF's bell less charging unit of Paul Wurth (Luxemburg) make, which allows reducing coke consumption by 5% and increasing the BF productivity by 5% at the same time. To extend the service life of the blast furnace, a new refractory lining scheme has been applied in the blast-furnace hearth walls. The technology will increase lining durability by four times (to 15 years of maintenance free service).
Environmental reliability of BF-3 is assured by the aspiration and BF gas cleaning systems. For the first time in Ukraine a blast furnace has been equipped with the Paul Wurth's gas cleaning unit, which is to help the plant to efficiently resolve economic and environmental issues  and improve   Improve the plant's hygiene and environmental performance. The gas cleaning unit not only purifies the BF gas from harmful contaminants to 99.9%, but also uses it as a fuel in production facilities of the enterprise as a substitute for natural gas.
Technological process control at BF-3 is based on a modern Siemens VAI (Austria) industrial control system. This is a fundamentally new integrated control network, which is based on processing of more than 5 thousand validation parameters.
The Industrial Control System now also encompasses the heat and power plant-steam and air blowing station, which was modernized along with BF-3 facilities construction project. At the Heat and Power Plant a turbine and compressor unit (Turbine Air Blower № 6) made by CKD Nove Energo (Czech Republic) and the recycled water supply unit with two ventilated cooling towers and German pumping equipment were installed. Substantial upgrade of the power generating facilities it to ensure uninterruptable supply of blast air to the blast furnaces of Yenakiieve Steel. 
"Modern technologies and equipment being introduced at our enterprise for the most recent five years outline our position towards plant's development,"  noted Alexander Podkorytov. Director General of Yenakiieve Steel. "Together with the improvement of our production base we are creating the new HR potential focusing on young people. For example, 90% of the crew of the new BF-3 facility are young specialists, who have passed the competition and were selected to work with the unique equipment. Over 120 people attended internships at the leading metallurgical enterprises of Russia and Europe".