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Second Blast Furnace Fired Up at ThyssenKrupp CSA in Brazil

12/21/2010 - Blast furnace 2 at the ThyssenKrupp CSA steel mill in Santa Cruz, Rio de Janeiro state was recently fired up on schedule and without problems—five months after blast furnace 1, which is now producing more than 6,500 tonnes of hot metal per day, close to its full capacity.

Blast furnace 2 at the ThyssenKrupp CSA steel mill in Santa Cruz, Rio de Janeiro state was recently fired up on schedule and without problems—five months after blast furnace 1, which is now producing more than 6,500 tonnes of top-quality hot metal per day, close to its full capacity.
 
“I expect the ramp-up of our second blast furnace to be just as successful and that next fiscal year the plant will be able to operate at its full capacity,” said Edwin Eichler, the ThyssenKrupp AG Executive Board member responsible for the Materials division. “This further milestone in our forward strategy will allow us to reach our objective of generating a profit in the Steel Americas business area in 2012/2013.”
 
The startup phase for blast furnace 2 was completed after only two days, with the processing of the hot metal into slabs. INEA, the Rio de Janeiro state environmental authority, and independent experts were closely involved in the startup and ramp-up.
 
In addition to blast furnace 1, the two 330-tonne converters have been in operation since early September and early November. The first slab was produced on September 7. Slabs from Brazil have now arrived in Duisburg and Mobile, Ala.; once full capacity is reached, 3 million tonnes of slabs per year will be shipped to Alabama and 2 million tonnes to the German processing plants.
 
“We weren’t expecting the material to be of such excellent quality in the first phase,” said Eichler. “The slabs even met the high requirements of tinplate production.”
 
The first blast furnace at ThyssenKrupp CSA in Brazil was fired up in July 2010. Since the startup of the first converter in the new steel mill, all emissions have been within the limits set by the Brazilian environmental authorities. The company says it regrets the temporary nuisance caused to residents by graphite dust.
 
The Rio de Janeiro public prosecutor opened investigations following complaints by residents and filed charges at the beginning of December. If the court in Santa Cruz allows the charge, ThyssenKrupp CSA says it will use the opportunity to disprove the allegations.
 
With an investment budget of €5.2 billion, the new integrated iron and steel mill is said by ThyssenKrupp to be the biggest industrial investment project in Brazil in the past 10 years and the first major steel mill to be built in the country since the mid-1980s. The Brazilian iron ore producer Vale holds a share of 26.87% in the subsidiary ThyssenKrupp CSA Siderúrgica do Atlântico.
 
The project includes the construction of a state-of-the-art plant complex with its own port terminal for importing coal and exporting the slabs, raw material handling facilities, coke plant, sinter plant, two blast furnaces, a BOF melt shop, and a power plant.