- Fired up for the 4th-term operation··· It is the world's 5th largest blast furnace with an internal volume of 5600㎥
- The smartization environment is implemented, e.g. utilization of AI

The 102-day improvement and repair of blast furnace No. 3 of Pohang Works was successfully finished, and the world's 5th-largest blast furnace began its 4th-term operation.

POSCO held the firing ceremony on June 6 in Pohang at the site of Blast Furnace No. 3 to announce its 4th-term operation. Over 200 people including the employees of POSCO Group were present at the ceremony.

▶ POSCO finished the improvement and repair of Pohang Blast Furnace No. 3 on June 6, and held the firing ceremony of the super-large blast furnace with an internal volume of 5600㎥. POSCO CEO Ohjoon Kwon is firing up Pohang Blast Furnace No. 3.

The internal volume of Pohang Blast Furnace No. 3, which began the improvement and repair work on February 24, was increased from 4350㎥ to 5600㎥. It is the 5th largest in the world, and can produce 15,000 tons of molten steel in a single day. As a result, POSCO now has and operates 5 super-large blast furnaces larger than 5500㎥, and firmly established itself as the world's best steel maker both in name and reality.

Currently, there is a total of 14 super-large blast furnaces with an internal volume greater than 5500㎥ in the world. POSCO has a total of 5, i.e. the world's largest Gwangyang Blast Furnace No. 1 (6000㎥), Pohang Blast Furnaces No. 3 and 4 (5600㎥) and Gwangyang Blast Furnaces No. 4 and 5 (5500㎥), while Japan has 4, China 3, Russia 1 and Germany 1.

▶ Distinguished guests, including CEO Kwon, are powering on the blower switch in the operating room of Pohang Blast Furnace No. 3.

During the improvement and repair of Pohang Blast Furnace No. 3, POSCO leveraged its past experience of improvement and repair(28 times in total) to apply not only the technology for forecasting and extending the life of the blast furnace, but also the technology for automatically controlling the internal state of the blast furnace from the design stage. As a result, POSCO built the infrastructure for implementing a 'smart blast furnace' based on artificial intelligence by monitoring the internal and external state of the blast furnace and collecting big data from the early stage of operation.

Meanwhile, Pohang Blast Furnace No. 3 was first fired up in 1978 with an internal volume of 3795㎥, and went through 3 terms of operations, and stably produced a total of 119 million tons of molten steel, laying down the foundation for the development of POSCO and related industries.

POSCO published this content on 06 June 2017 and is solely responsible for the information contained herein.
Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 12 June 2017 08:48:09 UTC.

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