In March this year, West-Siberian Steel Works (ZapSib), a subsidiary of the Russian steelmaker and iron ore producer Evraz Group (Evraz), posted a record monthly pig iron output of 550,000 mt.
In ZapSib's blast furnace shop three blast furnaces are operating with a total payload volume of 8,000 cubic meters. With its three blast furnaces, ZapSib is able to produce up to seven million mt of pig iron per year.
ZapSib's blast furnace shop was commissioned on July 27, 1964. In order to reduce production costs, in 2009 Evraz transferred pig iron smelting operations from its Novokuznetsk Iron and Steel Plant (NKMK) to ZapSib.