Major Russian steel producer NLMK Group has announced that it is carrying out a scheduled overhaul of blast furnace No. 5 at its main Novolipetsk production site in Lipetsk. As a result, the average capacity of the furnace will increase from 6,000 mt per day to a new designed capacity of 8,000 mt per day.
The overhaul of the blast furnace will not impact Novolipetsk's production program as the BF No. 5's productivity will improve and as the performance of other blast furnaces will increase over the course of the year.
Novolipetsk currently operates five blast furnaces: No. 3 (1.3 million mt per year); No. 4 (2 million mt per year); No. 5 (2.8 million mt per year ); No. 6 (3.2 million mt per year); and No. 7 (4.2 million mt per year). The latter, launched in 2011, is one of the most efficient blast furnace in the world. Novolipetsk is successfully implementing an efficiency improvement program. As a result, 2014 saw record performances achieved throughout the site's value chain. Steel output rose by 1.3 percent compared to 2013 reaching 12.56 million mt, with capacities running at 100 percent utilization.
Productivity of all blast furnaces has been increased as a result of improved pig iron smelting technology, the implementation of pulverized coal injection and increased operational efficiency, with daily pig iron output in 2014 increasing by an average of 2.3 percent year on year to reach an average 36,000 mt.