Alchevsk Iron and Steel Works (Alchevsk), the subsidiary of the Ukrainian steel producer Industrial Union of Donbass (ISD), plans in 2010 to restart the construction of its blast furnace (BF) No. 2, which is currently about 30 percent completed, the Ukrainian News information agency has reported citing Alchevsk CEO Taras Shevchenko.
As SteelOrbis previously reported, the commissioning of Alchevsk's BF No. 2 is planned for June 2011, and will allow Alchevsk to increase its daily output of pig iron by 65.5 percent to 24,000 mt. The contract for the design and construction of the BF was concluded with Netherlands-based plantmaker Danieli Corus.
In addition, in 2010 Alchevsk is also to start the construction of a new sintering plant consisting of two sintering machines, with a total capacity of 11 million mt of agglomerate per year. The project in question is being implemented by German plantmaker Siemens VAI and is to be completed within three-to-four years.
Jointly with Japanese company Mitsubishi, Alchevsk is also constructing a new gas-turbine station, which will be equipped with three steam generating units of 150 MW each, and will use coke oven gas, blast furnace gas and basic oxygen converter gas as fuel.
Previously, the commissioning of the new gas-turbine station was planned to take place by October 2010; however, Alchevsk has delayed the commissioning of the gas-turbine station's unit No. 1 from September 2009 to May 2010, and the startup of its unit No. 2 to autumn 2010. The startup of the gas-turbine station's unit No. 3 was delayed to 2012, as it depends on the commissioning of the plant's BF No. 2.
Moreover, in the second quarter of 2010 Alchevsk also intends to introduce pulverized coal injection (PCI) technology at its BFs No. 3 and No. 4.
In spring this year, Alchevsk completed the introduction of PCI technology at its BFs No. 1 and No. 5, which allowed the company to reduce the consumption of natural gas from 60,000 cubic meters per hour to 25,000-27,000 cubic meters per hour.
Previously, Alchevsk planned to finish the introduction of PCI technology at its BFs by July 2011, whereas now the date has been delayed to the end of 2011, as currently the works have been temporarily stopped due to lack of money.