Feb. 15, 2006 — Woodings Industrial Corp. has completed its installation of 34 tuyere stocks for U.S. Steel’s No. 14 Blast Furnace at the Gary Works.

U. S. Steel announced its rebuild of the former Gary No. 13 Blast Furnace (which will become No. 14 Blast Furnace when it restarts) in April. Upon completion of the upgrade, the blast furnace, which has 34 tuyeres, was to be capable of producing 9,200 tons of hot metal per day at 97.5% availability for 20 years. Woodings provided a total of 68 blowpipe assemblies and 54 downlegs for the project.

Working in a joint arrangement with Siemens, Woodings used the basic Siemens design for the tuyere stock. Siemens’ tuyere stock design features a unique expansion bellows that facilitates better control of movement for longer tuyere stock life, and an improved seal on the furnace for more consistent operation and less maintenance.

Although used extensively throughout the rest of the world, the U.S. Steel project is the first installation in the United States to utilize the patented, Siemens-designed stock.

According to Woodings President, Rob Woodings, global expertise helped bring the project to fruition. “Our presence in the world marketplace and our strategic partnerships with companies that help us bring added technology and world-class equipment to the market, certainly facilitated this installation,” explained Woodings.

The only hot metal equipment supplier offering design, engineering, manufacturing and service from one source, Woodings Industrial Corp. is the oldest continuous family-operated business in North America’s steel industry. A worldwide leader in the manufacture of metals industry equipment, Woodings uses the most current technologies to design, engineer and manufacture an extensive line of traditional and not-so-traditional hot metal equipment, such as tap hole drills, clay guns, tuyere stocks, blast furnace valves and engineering specialty products for continuous casters. Woodings is the exclusive supplier of Grabe overlay components in North America and has plants at its headquarters in Mars and Harmony, Pa., along with offices in Detroit and Gary, Ind.