OREANDA-NEWS. On December 10, 2008 Azovstal Steel Plant, part of Metinvest Group, has stopped using natural gas in its blast furnaces. Blast furnaces have been fuelled only by coke for iron production since November 2008. Some UAH 12m a month is saved on natural gas in the plant, reported the press-centre of SCM. 

The shift to a new method of iron smelting comprised three stages not to violate operation of blast furnaces. The quality of iron remained high. Today the blast furnace shop runs four furnaces. Coke nut and converter slag as flux are also used sometimes in the iron smelting process. Use of these components helped halve the lime consumption.
 
“Since the second half of October we've been taking natural gas out of the production cycle and replacing it with higher coke consumption. We stopped using the natural gas completely early in November", said Dmitriy Livshits, CEO of Azovstal.  "Technicians and engineers worked very professionally. Today all machines operate in regular mode with new parameters, and the quality of produced iron remains high".
 
Profile:
 Azovstal Steel Plant is a modern hi-tech enterprise that produces a wide range of metal products including slabs, shapes and sections, rails, rail fasteners, square billet, heavy plate and slag products for steel making. Azovstal Plant is among three leading metal companies of Ukraine. The designed production capacities of the Plant allow to produce over 6.2m tonnes of iron, over 6.4m tonnes of steel, including 4.4m tonnes of converter steel, over 4.4m tonnes of rolled products, as well as up to 285,000 tonnes of rail fasteners and 170,000 tonnes of milling balls per year.

Metinvest Group is the regional leader in mining and metals sector and one of the key players at world’s iron and steel market. Metinvest Group companies produce 10.5 million tonnes of steel and more than 40 million tonnes of iron ore raw materials annually. Metinvest not only satisfies its own raw material needs but is also a key supplier for many other Ukrainian and European companies, as well as Asian businesses.

Metinvest Holding  is the managing company of Metinvest Group. The owners of the METINVEST HOLDING are Metinvest B.V. (Netherlands) with 51.15% and ZAO SCM with (48.85%).