Leading pig iron exporter Metalloinvest is to modernize two of its four blast furnaces before the end of 2020, but will keep its pig iron capacity largely unchanged, the Russian company said this week.
A major global supplier of iron ore, pig iron and hot-briquetted iron (HBI), Metalloinvest awarded the upgrade contract to Netherlands-based global equipment suppliler Danieli Corus, which will be upgrading the companies No2 and No3 blast furnaces its Ural Steel facility at Novotroitsk in the Orenburg region to the south of Moscow. "There will be no significant changes [in output]," a Metalloinvest spokesman told Fastmarkets.A Danieli Corus spokesman said the upgrade would make the furnaces more effective."The upgraded blast furnaces will be able to produce their hot metal more efficiently and will be able to achieve longer campaign lengths," he said. "[But] they will not be enlarged to such an extent that the annual production will become significantly...