OREANDA-NEWS. August 15, 2008. Investments into environmental projects will be made as part of the complex program of production upgrading and modernization. The amount of projected investments total over US5bn., reported the press-centre of SCM.

The key points of the program are: reconstruction of sinter plant, modernization of iron-making shop with decreasing the number of operating blast furnaces, transition to dry gas cleaning system in BOFs and stage-by-stage decommissioning of three coke-oven batteries, as well as of OHF Shop, Blooming Mill and Rail Mill.

The outcome of Azovstal's upgrading and modernization program implementation by 2020 will be 25% increase of production output with emissions reduction by 25%. Also, 100% of by-products (process dust, slag, and sludge) will be recycled into environmentally safe products.

Efficient and proven environmental safety policy of Azovstal is already producing substantial effect. For the first half of 2008 only, Azovstal reduced air emissions by 12,000 tons, which is twice above the annual commitments.