Russian steelmaker NLMK Group has announced that its subsidiary NLMK Lipetsk has begun an overhaul of its reheating furnace used for heating up steel slabs prior to rolling at the hot strip mill 2000. The completion of the overhaul is planned for the second quarter of 2023. Investment in the project will exceed RUB 5 billion.
The upgrade will increase hot rolled steel output at NLMK Lipetsk by 430,000 mt per year, improve product quality, halve energy consumption, and reduce carbon emissions by 53,000 mt.
As a result of the overhaul, which will be made without interrupting production operations, the furnace’s productivity will go up by 23 percent to 320,000 mt per hour and to 2.25 million mt per year.
Four units out of the mill 2000 reheating furnace’s total of five have already been upgraded.