Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (MMK) put the development of its oxygen facilities on the company’s priority projects list. According to the enterprise’s PR Department, their oxygen shop’s primary consumers (the blast furnace shop, the steel-smelting shop, and the oxygen converter shop) were forced to cut down dramatically on their outputs at the end of last year. The company was then capable of producing 45,000 cubic meters of oxygen an hour, whereas the equipment’s estimated capacity came to as many as 270,000-280,000 cubic meters an hour. Only four out of ten machines were in actual use at the moment. In January, however, the oxygen department ran nine out of ten units, so the output rose to 240,000 cubic meters an hour and the shop’s 350 workers returned to their usual hours.

At the moment, MMK is considering two oxygen shop development options; the first one provides for the construction of a new air separation unit at station 5, the second one would imply five years of step-by-step upgrading and reconstruction of four existing air separation units.

‘We might start implementing one of the two projects as soon as this year, since this is one of our priority projects like Mill 5000 and the hot rolling Mill 2500. To complete the new air separation unit at station 4 (launched last summer), the turbo-blower machinery has to be assembled there. This is just about to be finished by Elektroremont, MMK’s daughter enterprise,’ MMK reports.