Ukrainian mining and steel producing group Metinvest has announced that it will invest over $17 million to build a pulverized coal injection (PCI) plant for blast furnace No. 4 at its Azovstal integrated steelworks. The project will allow the conversion of the blast furnace process from costly natural gas to pulverized coal in the future.
Metinvest stated that the use of the pulverized coal will boost the performance of blast furnace No. 4 by 20 percent and reduce hot metal production costs by completely substituting natural gas and partly coke with pulverized coal. The process solutions under the project will allow for further stage-by-stage development of the facility to ensure pulverized coal injection for all five blast furnaces at Azovstal. The annual natural gas saving potential is estimated at 300 million cubic meters.