Dnipro Metallurgical Plant reduced its CO2 emissions by 80% over five years

In his speech at the international forum “Decarbonization of the steel industry: a challenge for Ukraine”, Maksym Miniushkіn, Adviser to the Chief Officer for Investment at DCH Steel, explained how Dnipro Metallurgical Plant (DMZ), which belongs to DCH Steel, part of Oleksandr Yaroslavsky’s DCH group, managed to reduce CO₂ emissions by 80%, how much was spent on achieving that and how much is still to be invested. GMK Center publishes the abstracts of his speech:

– Dnipro Metallurgical Plant is one of the oldest steelmaking companies in Ukraine. The first blast furnace at the plant was put into operation on 22 May 1887. That event practically became the enterprise’s date of birth. In 2021, we celebrated the 134th anniversary of the establishment of our plant. Throughout all these years Dnipro Metallurgical Plant played an important part in the life of Dnipro and is now one of the city’s economic backbones, providing secure jobs for several thousand of its employees.

Despite its respectable age, the plant is still one of the largest enterprises in Dnipro and Ukraine. DMZ has lots of ambitious plans for modernization of its production capacities, including minimization of pollutant emissions into the atmosphere, in particular CO₂.

Environmental issues have always been a priority for our company. Dnipro Metallurgical Plant actively participates in several national-, regional- and local-level programs, for instance, in the Complex Program for Environmental Safety and Sustainable Development of Dnipro for 2021–2025, the Dnipro Oblast Complex Program for Environmental Safety and Climate Change Prevention for 2016–2025, and the Complex Program for Environmental Safety and Sustainable Low-Carbon Environmental Development of Dnipro for 2016–2025.

The company has already invested more than ₴350 million to fulfill the commitments undertaken within the framework of the above-mentioned programs. That amount does not include funds spent on general overhaul repairs, nor any technical re-equipment expenses. The funds were spent on one-off measures allowing to cut down emissions, including CO₂.

The first such measures included reconstruction of gas-cleaning equipment of the BOF shop, modernization of gas-cleaning system of that shop and modernization of the blast furnace gas bleeder.

At the coke site of the enterprise, we have funded rebricking of two cameras of coke oven batteries, overhaul repair of the pinion walls of four coke oven batteries and renovation of the closed gas final cooling system for coke gas. We have also built a water loop for the turbine hall of the roll shop No 1.

The last example is the installation of red fumes suppression systems at the cast yards of two blast furnaces.

These one-off measures yielded results. From 2016 to 2020, the enterprise considerably curbed the amount of pollutants emitted into the atmosphere, reducing it from 8,332 to 2,506 tons, that is, cutting it down by 70%. The CO₂ emissions alone dropped from 2 million tons in 2016 to 400 thousand tons in 2020, i.e. by more than 80%.

Such results were achieved largely due to redistribution of energy flows in production processes, curbing the use of fuel for heat generation, increasing the efficiency of the plant’s generation of its own electricity and boosting the efficiency of the use of heating equipment at roll shops.

DMZ’s plans for the following years are more ambitious. At the moment, the company has a more than $400 million investment program is in place. Its key components include building a continuous casting machine, as well as building a new roll shop and a new rolling mill. This amount also includes the costs for the development of new energy-intensive projects. Dnipro Metallurgical Plant takes consistent steps towards decarbonization and I am confident that the enterprise will definitely meet all of its environmental goals.