German steelmaker ThyssenKrupp has announced that its blast furnace No. 2 in Duisburg-Schwelgern, Europe's biggest blast furnace, will be cooled down in the middle of June to allow modernization work to begin. The blast furnace No. 2 has been in operation for 21 years and it is expected to resume working at the end of September.
ThyssenKrupp said that the relining of blast furnace No. 2 represents a significant capital investment. Including dismantling and other maintenance and repair work ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe is spending more than €200 million on the project. In preparation for the relining, blast furnace No. 9 in Duisburg-Hamborn was restarted in October 2013 to produce the required amount of pig iron for the production process.
ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe has four blast furnaces in total. Blast furnaces No. 8 and No. 9 in Duisburg-Hamborn together produce around 3.7 million mt of pig iron per year, while blast furnaces No. 1 and No. 2 in Duisburg-Schwelgern have a combined output of roughly 7.7 million mt per year. How the four blast furnaces are operated in the future will depend on further market developments.