Oxygen supply disruption halts NLMK BOF shop No.2

NLMK was forced to halt production at the recently modernised BOF shop No.2 at its flagship Russian Lipetsk works after the pipework supplying oxygen to the shop was damaged in an incident on Monday morning.

The incident has not affected main production equipment or transportation structure, and repairs will take around 48 hours, with an output loss expected accordingly, an NLMK representative says.

With a nameplate capacity of 8.5 million tonnes/year of crude steel based on 2020 output numbers, the production losses during the repair time are currently estimated at 4,657 tonnes, Kallanish calculates based on information supplied by NLMK. 

The incident has not affected other production facilities, which continue to operate at capacity levels, NLMK adds.

The firm has recently completed a series of environmental upgrades at the Lipetsk site, reducing dust emissions at BOFshop No.2 by 2.5 times. The shop produces over 60% of Lipetsk’s steel output. BOF shop NO.2 nameplate capacity will have increased by around 15% by the end of 2021 to around 10m t/y, thanks to these upgrades, NLMK says.

Katya Ourakova UK