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NLMK Marks 80th Anniversary with Jubilee Pig Iron Heat at BF No. 7

Oleg Bagrin, NLMK Group CEO; Sergey Filatov, Novolipetsk managing director; plant heads of department and veterans; and Oleg Korolev, governor of Lipetsk Region took part in the jubilee smelting ceremony.
 
Construction of the Novolipetsk Metallurgical Plant began in 1931 on the left bank of the Voronezh River. On 7 November 1934, Russia’s future leading steelmaker’s first blast furnace produced its first 64 metric tons of pig iron.
 
Oleg Bagrin, NLMK Group CEO, said: “Throughout the decades of its long history, Novolipetsk has always been a centre for implementing advanced solutions that determined the development of both Russian and global steelmaking. Today, NLMK Group is a global company; the biggest steelmaker in Russia and one of the most efficient companies in the world. We have ambitious goals and large-scale projects ahead of us that will be a success thanks to, among other factors, the professionalism and loyalty of the Lipetsk steelmakers.”
 
After the jubilee heat, the opening ceremony of the Steelmaker sculptural composition dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the company and the trade union was held on the territory of the plant next to the main administrative building. The monument was created by sculptor Valentin Chelyadin, a former NLMK employee. The sculpture was cast by Novolipetsk specialists.
 
Novolipetsk background
Construction of the steel plant began in 1931 on the site of the Lipetsk iron ore deposit, by resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. On 7 November 1934, the day established as the anniversary of the plant, Novolipetsk produced its first pig iron.
 
In 1941, the Second World War brought the threat of occupation to Lipetsk, so the blast furnace shop and the heat and power plant were disassembled and evacuated to Chelyabinsk. The remaining equipment was used to fulfil war orders. In 1947, reconstruction works began at the Lipetsk plant; by 1951 two blast furnaces were restored. In 1957, the transformer steel hot-rolling shop was commissioned; in 1958-1959 the electric arc furnace shop with continuous casting machines was commissioned and the plant mastered 100% casting using continuous casters, making it the first plant in the world to manage this feat.
 
By 1983, Novolipetsk became a vertically integrated steelmaking company. In 1986, the plant commissioned a specialized shop for rolling dynamo steel, the largest in Europe at the time. On the 31 December 1992, state enterprise NLMK was transformed into a public company.
 
Over the 80 years of its history, NLMK has come an enormous way from a single blast furnace to becoming one of the leading global steelmakers and the largest steelmaker in Russia. Currently, steel output at the Lipetsk site exceeds 12 million metric tons per year, which accounts for approximately 18% of Russia’s total steel output and approximately 80% of NLMK Group’s total steel output. In 1934, Novolipetsk employed 312 people; today it employs more than 29,000. The company’s tax payments form approximately 30% of the budget of Lipetsk Region.
 
For more information on the history of the company please follow the link.