Russian steelmaker NLMK Group has announced that it has started hot-testing the pulverized coal injection (PCI) unit at blast furnace (BF) No. 6 at its Lipetsk plant, one of the largest blast furnaces at the plant with a capacity of 3.1 million mt of pig iron per year. Meanwhile, the hot-testing of the PCI unit is due to begin at blast furnace No. 7, which has a capacity of 4.3 million mt per year.
Hot-testing is scheduled to end and startup to begin in the third quarter of the current year. Capital expenditure for the PCI project at the two blast furnaces will amount to over RUB 6.8 billion ($119.55 million).
The company’s vice president for investment projects, Konstantin Lagutin, stated that by the end of this year 90 percent of the Lipetsk plant’s blast furnace capacities will be covered by this resource-saving PCI technology. The new technology will enable a 30 percent decrease in the consumption of expensive coke in the blast furnace process and a 50 percent reduction in the consumption of natural gas.