Russian steelmaker Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK) has announced that it is upgrading hot rolled steel production at its Lipetsk site, installing a new walking-beam reheating furnace to streamline the slab heating process. The new furnace with a capacity of about 2.25 million mt per year will boost the productivity of Mill 2000, increase the quality of steel products due to the more advanced technology for feeding slabs to the mill, enable a significant reduction in energy consumption and minimize environmental impact.
“Specific natural gas consumption will decrease by 49 percent, consumption of energy required for subsequent rolling will decline by 20 percent and air emissions will be almost halved”, Konstantin Lagutin, NLMK Group vice president for investment projects, said.
Construction and assembly activities are scheduled to begin in the fourth quarter of 2017, with the commissioning planned for the second half of 2019. During maintenance, slabs for the hot strip mill will be pre-heated by four of the five existing reheating furnaces. NLMK said that the upgrade of furnace No. 2 will have no impact on its production program.