NLMK, a leading global steelmaking company, announced that Novolipetsk, its main production site in Lipetsk, Russia, has commissioned a 2 million tonne per year ladle furnace (LF) to produce high-grade steels. This will enable NLMK to manufacture new types of high-quality rolled steels for use in the automotive, mechanical engineering and construction industries.

Novolipetsk has successfully completed guarantee tests at its 2 million tonne per year 160 tonne Ladle Furnace #1 (LF-1). With its facilities currently in operation, almost 100% of steel produced by NLMK undergoes secondary metallurgy treatment.

The commissioning of the LF will enable NLMK to expand its product mix, ensure the production of new flat products and commercial slabs with ultra low sulphur content (below 0.001-0.002%) and narrower alloying parameters, and improve quality by reducing the amount of non-metallic inclusions at the Lipetsk site. Ladle furnace treatment will be used for low-carbon, carbon, low-alloy, and electrical steels for use in the automotive, mechanical engineering and construction industries.

In April 2012, NLMK completed guarantee tests at Ladle Furnace #2 (LF-2) which has a similar capacity. The projects were carried out in cooperation with Siemens VAI (Austria) as part of Stage II of NLMK’s Technical Upgrade and Development Programme.

The secondary metallurgy complex in Basic Oxygen Furnace (BOF) shops includes four ladle furnaces with a total capacity of 12 million tonnes per year, ten ladle metallurgy units, 2 RH degassers with a capacity of 400,000 tonnes per year in BOF Shop #1 and 4 million tonnes per year in BOF Shop #2, commissioned in September 2011.