Taranto-based Italian steel producer Ilva has announced a new roadmap for its environmental upgrading work at its steel complex. However, the plan will keep the steelmaker’s biggest blast furnace, its BF No. 5, open for another two and a half years, despite an order from local magistrates to start shutting it down from Thursday, October 11.
Accordingly, blast furnace No. 1 will be idled from December 1, 2012 to October, 31 2013, while blast furnace No. 5 is to be idled in the second half of 2015 (July 1-December 31). During the stoppages, the company will install stock dedusting equipments and a treatment system for the gases emitted by the slag sintering machine. According to the schedule issued by Ilva, blast furnaces Nos. 2 and 4 will not be turned off. Once work on blast furnaces is completed, the company will also install a Cowper regenerative heat exchanger by March 31, 2016.
The most important work to be carried out by Ilva is the covering system for its ore yards, and this will be Luxembourg-based equipment supplier Paul Wurth. By March 31, 2016, Ilva’s iron ore and coal yards will be fully covered and waterproof. In the meantime, by December 31, 2013 the company will improve the wetting systems both for the ore yards and for dust-form materials (in the latter case through fog cannons).
Ilva’s coke oven batteries will be upgraded as well. Batteries Nos. 5 and 6 will be idled from December 1, 2012 to October 31, 2013, while batteries Nos. 3, 4 and 11 will be idle from July 1, 2015 to February 29, 2016. The upgrade works, to be carried out also on batteries Nos. 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11, will consist of installation of new showers, installation of a ‘proven’ pressure control system and replacement of refractory lining.
Other major developments are scheduled for agglomeration systems E and D. These facilities will be turned off respectively in July-August and September-October 2013 in order to install an upgraded rotatory cooling system and state-of-the-art secondary dedusting filters.
Finally, the converter shop will be covered with a roof by the end of November 2013 and will be equipped with a new dry-type waste gas filter by November 30, 2014. Moreover, the ladle furnaces will be equipped with new waste gas extraction and desulfurization systems.