Swedish specialty steel producer SSAB has announced that it has modernized its blast furnace in Lulea, Sweden, and the blast furnace is now turning out premium quality crude steel. Meanwhile, the blast furnaces in Raahe, Finland were modernized as recently as 2011 and an investment in a pulverized coal injection system has now been completed there. This investment will reduce annual costs by around SEK 200 million from 2016 onwards. The company stated that the installations in both Lulea and Raahe will further improve both its cost efficiency and environmental footprint.
SSAB’s five blast furnaces in the Nordic region have a total capacity of around 6.4 million mt. One blast furnace is in Lulea, while there are two each in Oxelösund and Raahe.