ThyssenKrupp Stahl AG has announced a new blast furnace concept that will make a lasting improvement to both the environment and the job situation in the industrial city of Duisburg.

“The construction of the new Blast Furnace 8 will play a major part in this. The project will directly secure some 1200 jobs, and indirectly 3600 and not only enhance air quality,” explained Dr. Karl-Ulrich Köhler, CEO of ThyssenKrupp Stahl AG. Moreover, the new blast furnace will maintain the fine energy balance of the company’s power and production plants, which will further reduce environmental impact and optimize the CO2 balance.

The new Blast Furnace 8 will stabilize ThyssenKrupp Stahl’s hot metal base for the production and processing of steel at its German plants. It will also ensure the long-term supply of hot metal to Ispat’s Ruhrort site. “The alternative to building a new blast furnace would be to gradually move production to locations outside the EU. That is not our intention. We have a responsibility to our German employees, and we want to secure their jobs long term,” said Dr. Köhler.

Compared with the old Blast Furnace 4 (built in 1964), which will be shut down and kept only as a back-up unit in the future, the new blast furnace will feature state-of-the-art technology. In terms of pollution control, it will be one of the most advanced of its kind worldwide. A logical consequence of the agreement with North Rhine-Westphalia’s environment ministry, the new blast furnace represents a further step toward improving air quality, and will also reduce noise levels in the Duisburg-Bruckhausen area.