OREANDA-NEWS. Metinvest Group's Yenakiieve Steel installed a new turbine and compressor unit to provide additional blast air to the plant's blast furnaces last week.

“The metallurgical industry is now focused on reducing costs,” said Aleksandr Podkorytov, Yenakiieve Steel general director. “Blast furnace productivity depends a lot on the stability of blast air. This highly effective blast air generator will allow us to reduce coke consumption, which increases hot metal output and in turn raises continuously cast billet production.”

The turbine and compressor unit will be the most powerful of its kind at the plant; its capacity is 5,500 cubic meters of air per minute. It was built by the companies that installed a similar unit at Blast Furnace #3. The equipment will be supplied by CKD Nove Energo (Czech Republic); the automated process control unit was made by Siemens (Austria). Civil works were performed by Spetsenergomontazh (Ukraine).

Installation of the unit's steel structures (platforms, stairs, and other facilities) and reconstruction of the electricity supply unit is still in progress. Relevant infrastructure is also under construction, including a recycled water supply system and process-related sewage system.

The USD 22.6 million project is being implemented as part of Metinvest Group's initiative to modernize its enterprises, according to its Technological Strategy.

EMZ's three blast furnaces have been receiving blast air from five turbine blowers, whose output is not sufficient to operate the blast furnaces; three of these blowers are obsolete.