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ThyssenKrupp Steel Starts up New Blast Furnace at Duisburg
12/17/2007 - ThyssenKrupp Steel starts up its new blast furnace No. 8 in Duisburg, part of the company’s 340-million-euro expansion program to secure hot metal production for its German plants.
ThyssenKrupp Steel AG has started up its new blast furnace No. 8 in Duisburg. Completed in 28 months, the new blast furnace is part of the company’s 340-million-euro program to secure hot metal production for its German plants.
ThyssenKrupp Steel invested 250 million euros in the construction of blast furnace No. 8. Around 80 million—almost a third of the total investment—was spent on pollution control equipment, with the result that all emissions are below the limits set by the relevant environmental standards. In terms of dust emissions, blast furnaces No. 8 and 9 will be more than 20% below the previous figures for blast furnaces No. 4 and 9. Noise emissions have likewise been significantly reduced.
The new blast furnace also features a new color design that changes from black at the top to orange and then to yellow, reflecting the temperature changes inside the furnace.
Producing around 5600 tonnes of hot metal per day, the new blast furnace No. 8 replaces blast furnace No. 4, built in 1963, which will serve as a spare in the future. It will serve as one of four blast furnaces the company operates on its nine-square-kilometer site in Duisburg. Together, the four Duisburg blast furnaces—including Schwelgern No. 1 and No. 2, which are among the biggest of their kind in the world—produce around 11.5 million tonnes of hot metal per year.
ThyssenKrupp Steel’s blast furnace expansion program also includes extensive modernization of the existing blast furnace No. 9. Once this upgrade is completed, furnaces No. 8 and 9 will be operated as twin units with common control and raw-material supply systems.
In addition to the Duisburg blast furnace program, ThyssenKrupp Steel AG’s forward strategy also includes additional capacity-expansion investments of around six billion euros. These investments include a new steel mill currently under construction in Brazil with a capacity of five million tons per year that is scheduled for completion in spring 2009. Three million tons of the steel produced in Brazil will be processed in a new state-of-the-art Alabama facility that will feature high-capacity hot-rolled, cold-rolled and coating lines. Two million tons of steel from Brazil will be delivered to Germany, where ThyssenKrupp Steel is currently investing in expansion of its value-adding processing and coating lines.
