30 July 2020
Ilyich Iron and Steel Works of Mariupol is close to completing one of the largest environmental projects in the history of independent Ukraine, which is the reconstruction of the mill's sinter plant. To install the software and to have cold and hot testing of dedusting equipment, the Italian specialists arrived on site. Metinvest Group's investments in the project amounted to over USD 150 million.
Despite the pandemic, Metinvest Group continued its key environmental project, including construction and erection of a new two-stage gas cleaning system within the sintering area of 12 sinter machines at Ilyich Steel.
The first stage of cleaning involves coarse dust removal by modern Italian cyclones HURRICLONE. In the second stage, the gas is further cleaned of dust and sulphur compounds in high-capacity bag filters, thus providing more than a ten-fold reduction of dust emissions.
Installation of software had been initially planned for the first quarter of this year, yet the coronavirus pandemic forced the Italian specialists to leave Ukraine back in early spring, while the equipment requiring further fine-tuning was still pending its installation.
However, due to ease-up of quarantine measures, the Italian specialists were able to get back to finalizing the project. According to Andrea Fontolan, an engineer of Customer Service Department of TERMOKIMIK CORPORATION S.p.A., the remaining work includes installation of software, checking on erection work for compliance with the technical documentation, and commissioning of the equipment along with correction of any issues related to equipment operation.
"Environmental modernization of our sinter plant was started more than seven years ago. Since then, a modern and efficient dedusting plant has been built from scratch. The Italian specialists are now down to the short strokes to this large environmental project. Once it has been gradually commissioned, we can significantly reduce dust and sulphur emissions by the mill's sinter plant", emphasized Taras Shevchenko, the General Director of Ilyich Iron and Steel Works of Mariupol.