Czech steelmaker Třinecké železárny is investing CZK 1.6bn ($74.3mn) in 2021 towards reducing its carbon footprint in steelmaking.
The company, which is a part of the Moravia Steel Group indicated that it would use CZK600mn, or 37.5pc of the total investment plan for the year to overhaul its blast furnace No 6 in August 2021. The downtime will last 70 days with commissioning expected in November. The reconstruction of the 22-year-old equipment will help the company modernize its environmental, production, and safety standards, it noted in a media statement on Feb 2.
The steelmaker also plans to modernize the last of the three wind heaters in the furnace hearth to reduce energy consumption, and therefore carbon emissions in the production of pig iron.
Třinecké will use CZK300mn towards modernizing its continuous casting No 1 unit from its original 1989 design to cast round blooms with a diameter of 600mm. It previously installed two modern casting strands in 2018. The company is also expanding the production capacity of higher diameter blooms to capture demand from energy industries such as wind turbines. In 2020, Třinecké sold 50,000mt of steel for wind power.
The company is also setting up dedusting devices to assist in the production of blast furnace sinters. The new system will limit airborne dust during the processing of raw materials during the production of pig iron and steel.
Třinecké is a Czech and producer of rails, semi-finished steel, special steel, wire rod, seamless tubes, steel bars, drawn steel and other steel byproducts. More than 98pc of its steel is produced in the BOF converter plant with annual capacity to produce 2.5mn mt of crude steel and 2mn mt of pig iron. In 2019, its sales of rolled products including steel tallied at 2.4mn mt. and the company hit a sales revenue of CZK41bn.
($1=CZK21.53)