OREANDA-NEWS. January 19, 2009. Yenakiyevo Steel Plant (YeMZ) operating under umbrella of Metinvest Group increased production volumes in December 2008 compared to November of 2008: the plant increased production of pig iron by 51 thousand tons or by 39.4% and production of steel by 63.3 thousand tons (47%); shipments of marketable products increased by 60.3 thousand tons (44.9%), reported the press-centre of SCM.

The performance indicators were improved as the result of operation of three blast furnaces in the blast furnace shop (in October-November only two blast furnaces were used to produce pig iron).

Reduction in downtime for repairs in the converter shop and improvement of the continuous casting machine technology also contributed to the growth in production volumes. In December the plant produced 10 million tons of continuous cast steel billets from the moment of start-up of the complex ladle furnace -continuous casting machine.

YeMZ managed to achieve the highest converter lining resistance value in Ukraine - 4,790 (designed lining resistance -3,750). First of all this helps reduce cost of refractory consumption per ton of steel; and thus this helps reduce production cost.

In 12 months of 2008 YeMZ increased production of pig iron by 4.7% up to 2.56 million tons. In the January-to-December period of 2008 YeMZ significantly reduced production of steel and rolled products:  the plant reduced production of steel by 54.3 thousand tons compared to the same period of 2007;   deliveries of ready rolled products reduced by 71.6 thousand tons.