Ukrainian Metinvest Group is recommissioning a blast furnace at each of Azovstal and Zaporizhstal after undertaking major repairs, Davis Index learned.
The COVID-19 pandemic cleaved steel demand and resulted in the Ukranian firm putting blast furnace No. 4 at Azovstal —a facility with 4,650 pig iron capacity a day—on stand-by, which created an opportunity to replace valves on the furnace’s bell-less top charging device. Additionally, there were scheduled repairs for auxiliary equipment and the furnace facilities, and to clean the dedusting system’s pipelines to preserve design capacity. The work cost the company UAH21.1mn ($1.1mn).
Zaporizhstal has restarted blast furnace No. 5, which has a 2,900mt daily pig iron capacity, after suspending activity in March. An initial upgrade period of 16 days was extended as part of the pandemic lockdown because the market was at a low and sales were weak. The upgrades at Zaporizhstal amounted to UAH75mn.
Through the first four months of the year, Zaporizhstal produced 1.403mn mt of pig iron, which decreased from 1.498mn mt between January and April 2019.
($1=UAH27)