The world largest producer of merchant pig iron, Russia's Tulachermet, has informed SteelOrbis about its plans to conduct a major reconstruction of its blast furnace (BF) No. 1 and also to carry out maintenance works at its BF No. 2 and BF No. 3.
As regards its reconstruction of BF No. 1, Tulachermet plans to install a new aspiration system, aimed at reducing pollution, and also plans to increase the BF's efficiency and raise its production capacity to 3,200 mt per day. Production will be halted at BF No. 1 as of November 1, 2008, and will be recommenced at the end of 2009 - beginning of 2010. The reconstruction works will take approximately one million mt per year of pig iron off the market for a period of at least 12-15 months. The company may also install a pulverized coal injection (PCI) facility at BF No. 1 in the long term.
In October-November 2008, Tulachermet will carry out maintenance works at its BF No. 2 and BF No. 3. During the maintenance works, production at BF No. 2 will be halted for a period of five days to fix the furnace-charging equipment, while production at BF No. 3 will be stopped for a period of 12 days to replace its charging equipment and repair its shaft.