Salzgitter restarts blast furnace A after 100 days of downtime

German steelmaker Salzgitter is restarting blast furnace A at its Salzgitter plant in Lower Saxony after a complete modernization that lasted more than 100 days. This is stated in the company’s press release.

«With the complete replacement of blast furnace A lining, Salzgitter has taken a key operational step towards producing low-CO₂ steel in 2023,» it said.

As part of the modernization, the company replaced 3 thousand tons of refractory lining. The blast furnace process units and control system were also upgraded. Investments in the unit’s renovation amounted to €100 million. The contractor was Pirson Montage AG.

«This relining provides us and our customers and partners the security we need to continue to consistently drive the transformation of steel production forward. Based on a secure basic supply of pig iron, we will complete the next steps of SALCOS® – Salzgitter LowCO2 Steelmaking,» Ulrich Grethe, chairman of Salzgitter Flachstahl GmbH, comments.

Blast furnace A was commissioned in 1977 and has an annual capacity of 2 million tons of pig iron.

As GMK Center reported earlier, Salzgitter started the scheduled overhaul of blast furnace A at its Salzgitter plant in early August 2023. The company planned to replace the lining, modernize the integrated process and control technology.

Production losses during the project were to be compensated by increasing slab stocks and re-launching Blast Furnace C at the same plant after a long downtime.