ArcelorMittal Poland readies blast furnace shutdown for maintenance

ArcelorMittal Poland (AMP) says it will idle its Dabrowa Gornicza plant’s blast furnace no.2 at the end of March for long-awaited maintenance costing over PLN 720 million ($167m).

The firm idled BF3 last September due to weak demand but guaranteed trade unions it would be restarted no later than when BF2 maintenance would begin, which it expected in February or March. The BF3 restart was initiated in January (see Kallanish passim), meaning AMP will drop to one BF operation during the maintenance.

In late December, AMP contracted suppliers to carry out maintenance on the slag granulation units at BF2, which is scheduled for completion by September 2023.

“This will be the largest blast furnace investment ever carried out in Poland,” says AMP chief executive Frederik Van De Velde. “For ArcelorMittal Poland, it is also the largest investment project since the hot strip mill construction in Krakow.”

“Thanks to research and development projects at the blast furnace, we will create pilot installations – a closed cooling system with an innovative design of coolers, and a modern and ecological blast furnace gas treatment plant. Implementation of these projects will increase the efficiency of cooling water use, and reduce the amount of waste and further use of blast furnace gas as a fuel,” he adds.

AMP saw crude steel production fall 15% on-year in 2022 to 3.4 million tonnes, thereby dropping below 2020-pandemic output of 3.9mt. Despite the reduced production, ArcelorMittal’s sales in Poland rose 12% in 2022 to $5.93 billion, putting it in fourth place in the list of ArcelorMittal’s highest-earning countries versus fifth in 2021.

Adam Smith Poland