Zaporizhstal started work on the third blast furnace

Zaporizhstal, a joint venture of Metinvest Group, is taking blast furnace No. 2 out of forced hot mothballing, which has been idle since March 2022. Now Zaporizhstal’s blast furnace shop will operate with three blast furnaces.

“Since March last year, blast furnace No. 2 has been in hot conservation mode. The launch of the blast furnace was preceded by thorough work to ensure the production of a sufficient amount of raw materials. Today we have a solution that will allow us to increase production, at the same time, increase contributions to state budgets and attract foreign exchange earnings to the national economy,” said Roman Slobodyanyuk, General Director of Zaporizhstal.

In April 2022, after a period of hot conservation of production facilities, Zaporizhstal put into operation two blast furnaces - No. 3 and No. 4. During the period of forced hot conservation of BF-2, the specialists of the blast furnace shop and engineering services of Zaporizhstal carried out a comprehensive study, maintenance and repair of the main components of the blast furnace. In particular, a deep revision of the mechanical and electrical equipment of the blast furnace and its air heaters was carried out, a technical inspection and testing of the gas cleaning equipment of the blast furnace was carried out to ensure the reliability of the operation of the unit in accordance with the current environmental legislation.

At present, the DP-2 is being blown up. The blast furnace will reach its planned production capacity already in the first ten days of April. Thanks to the work on three blast furnaces, the daily productivity of Zaporizhstal's blast furnace shop will increase to 8,000 tons of pig iron.