On July 30, Russian steel producer Ashinskiy Metallurgical Works (Ashinskiy) announced the commissioning of its new unique-for-Russia 120-ton electric arc furnace (EAF-120) with an annual production capacity of one million mt.
Accordingly, with the commissioning of its new EAF-120, Ashinskiy has completed the reconstruction of its steel smelting production facilities, which was started in 2004, directed towards the replacement of the outdated open-hearth steelmaking method with the modern electric-smelting method.
Thus, within the next few months, Ashinskiy will close all its three existing open hearth furnaces which have a total annual capacity of 750,000-800,000 mt. The total investments in the reconstruction of the steel smelting production facilities amounted to more than Ruble 10 billion (about $330.6 million) from the company's own funds.
The new EAF-120 will allow Ashinskiy to save about $7 per each metric ton of melted steel, and to reduce the time of a single melting process from the current four (open hearth) hours to 50 minutes in the future.