Ulanhot Steel launches a new blast furnace at a plant in northern China

The capacity of the unit is estimated at 1.13 million tons of pig iron per year

Chinese steel company Ulanhot Steel has launched a new blast furnace at a plant in Inner Mongolia (an autonomous region in Northern China). Kallanish reports about it.

The blast furnace capacity 1.2 thousand cubic meters is estimated at 1.13 million tons of iron per year. At the same time, in August 2023, Ulanhot Steel shut down two smaller blast furnaces with a total volume of 1.1 thousand cubic meters, reducing the daily production of pig iron by approximately 5 thousand tons.

In addition to the new blast furnace, a plant for the utilization of gases during the production of pig iron was installed at the plant, which will generate about 7 million cubic meters of gas every year. The company will use the generated gas to produce electricity, which will reduce energy consumption and emissions by 50,000 tons every year and save 121.5 million yuan on electricity purchase. Carbon emissions will be reduced by 250,000 tons/year.

In 2014, Jingye Steel acquired Ulanhot Steel and announced the modernization of production equipment at the plant.

According to Inner Mongolia’s plans, 11 blast furnaces and 12 converters that produce a total of 6.65 million tons of pig iron per year and 6.2 million tons of steel should be closed by the end of 2023. Blast furnaces with a volume of up to 1.2 thousand cubic meters and converters and electric arc furnaces up to 100 tons are planned to be closed in the region by 2025.

As GMK Center reported earlier, Inner Mongolia in January-July 2023 increased steel production by 7.1% compared to the same period in 2022 – up to 18.54 million tons. China’s largest steel-producing province is Hebei. In 7 months, the region’s steelmakers produced 135.76 million tons of steel, which is 4.5% more year-on-year.