Russian steelmaker NLMK has announced that it has proceeded with the overhauls of its blast furnace (BF) No. 4 within the scope of its environmental project for the years 2022-24, contributing to the reduction of pollution of the environment and, concurrently, the upgrade of the company’s facilities. NLMK is expected to invest around RUB 6 billion ($84.5 million) in the upgrade of the facility in question. The project will enable NLMK to reduce carbon oxide emissions by 98 percent.
Accordingly, NLMK has embarked on the stove overhauls at BF No. 4 with a capacity of 2.1 million mt of pig iron. The maintenance works are expected to be completed without stopping the blast furnace.
Overall, within the project plan, it is scheduled to successively replace three stoves, units that reduce fuel consumption in pig iron production by heating up and supplying oxygen-enriched air into the blast furnace. According to the company’s announcement, as a part of the upgrade, the furnace was already equipped with dedusting systems with a 99.9 percent purification rate. All the filtered dust is now reintroduced into the production process as ferrous raw material for pig iron manufacturing, and the purified blast furnace gas is used as a secondary energy resource.