11.04.2014

Cherepovets Steel Mill, one of the world's largest integrated steel mills and part of the Russian Steel division of OAO Severstal, one of the world's leading steel and steel-related mining companies, announced that it is to invest around 2.2 billion rubles in its environmental programme for 2014.

Environmental project investment for 2014 will be broadly comparable with 2013, when the Company spent around 2.4 billion rubles on environmental initiatives. The company is maintaining this level of investment while still actively implementing its environmental projects.

The programme's priorities include three major projects aimed at reducing dust emissions, which were first implemented at the Cherepovets Steel Mill in 2011.

The projects involve installing equipment to trap fugitive emission from NoNo 1−3 converters, at a total cost of around 3.6 billion rubles (the major supplier for the process equipment is Siemens VA).

Installing exhaust hoods to trap fugitive emissions is a complicated and time-consuming process and the converter has to be disabled during the installation. Therefore, in order to achieve the company's production targets and honor customer commitments in Q4, the exhaust hood installation on the No.3 converter was scheduled to coincide with capital maintenance of this converter, which involved replacing the housing of the melting unit. The company drew from previous experience carrying out similar work on the No. 2 converter in Q4 2013 and completed capital maintenance on No. 3 converter and the installation of the exhaust hood almost 6.5 days ahead of schedule. This extra time gained, combined with the launch of shaft furnace No 1 (in Q1 two furnaces were operating in the electric-furnace melting shop), enabled the mill to fulfill its production targets for slabs for salable rolled steel and complete the order in full. In 2014 similar works will be performed on the remaining No.2 converter.

The following projects are currently in their final stage: reconstructing the gas cleaners of No. 1 electric shaft furnace at a cost of 850 million rubles and reconstructing the gas cleaners of No. 7 rotary furnace in the lime roasting plant at a cost of around 340 million. These projects will contribute to reducing dust emissions to the atmosphere.

In addition, the reconstruction of aspiration systems in agglomerative production will continue in 2014 at a total cost of 840 million rubles. This includes the reconstruction of five of the production line's processing units in order to improve their efficiency and reduce emissions of inorganic dust to the atmosphere.

Sergey Toropov, CEO of Severstal's Russian Steel Division, commented: "We continuously strive to meet the highest environmental safety standards and are applying world best practices for gas cleaning in these projects. These investment projects will ensure that we fully comply with environmental regulations for dust emission by 2016. This year we will also focus efforts on environmental educational initiatives and maintaining an open dialogue with the public on environmental issues.

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