OREANDA-NEWS. Pavel Uzbek, Khartsyzsk Pipe's acting general director, gave a presentation on his plant's experience with reducing environmental risks and improving energy efficiency at the 6th Annual Donetsk International Investment Summit.

DIIS is the largest Ukrainian business forum on economic development issues and investment prospects. This year's summit was focused on energy efficient and environmentally friendly business in Ukraine.

Summit participants included specialists, top management of the largest enterprises and banks, state leaders from Ukraine and other European countries.

Uzbek's presentation focused on Khartsyzsk Pipe's experience with lean principles; his plant was the first Metinvest Group to implement a continuous improvement system based on lean (eliminating all types of loss) in 2010. The system involves all workers to increase efficiency and make small improvements in the manufacturing process every day.

“The involvement of the plant's workers in preparing energy efficiency proposals is very important for us,” said Uzbek. “Their experience and knowledge help to define bottlenecks, study problems in detail, and contribute to the plant's development. “Today continuous improvement systems are a key long-term priority of Metinvest Group. Since we started implementing this system at Khartsyzsk Pipe, electricity consumption in the key manufacturing shop - pipe electric welding shop #2 - has decreased 1.8 times and compressed air consumption in pipe welding whop #4 by 1.4 times. Energy savings is a global issue: the rational use of natural resources and efficient consumption of electricity, gas, and heating have become very important. Saving energy in production is one of the key efficiency factors that forms the basis for the successful operation of the plant.”

Khartsyzsk Pipe also continuously reduces its environmental impact. Its production facilities underwent a major refurbishment in 2004-2010: modern equipment pipe manufacturing was installed, gas reheating furnaces were replaced with core induction furnaces, and plasma cutting machines were equipped with high-efficiency filters. The implementation of these measures resulted in a decrease in emissions by 2.2 times from 2006 to 2012.