The Russian steelmaker Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK) has announced that by mid-2011 it plans to begin the hot testing of its new 3.4 million mt capacity blast furnace (BF) No.7, the construction of which was started in 2008 within the framework of the second stage of NLMK's technical upgrade program.
Accordingly, up to now more than 30 percent of the work on the blast furnace in question has been completed. NLMK has already finished the installation of the BF's basic structures. In 2010 it plans to install the basic process equipment, and by mid-2011 it plans to implement the automatic process control system and to begin hot testing the blast furnace.
The new blast furnace facility and related units will be located in a 78 hectare-area in the southern part of NLMK's Lipetsk production site. The construction is expected to use 75,000 mt of steel structures, 25,000 mt of refractories and 40,000 mt of process equipment. The facility's infrastructure will also include about 50 km of new railways and motor roads.
The commissioning of its new BF No. 7, which is the first blast furnace to be built in Russia for 20 years, will allow NLMK to increase the steelmaking capacities at its main production site in Lipetsk by 40 percent to 12.4 million mt per year by 2012.