NLMK Group, an international steel producer with operations in Russia, the US and European countries, has completed hot-testing of its new crushing and screening unit for the processing of steelmaking slag at its Lipetsk production site.

The project will double the amount of scrap, or ‘metal inclusions‘, extracted from waste and returned to the production process.

The new unit will process 2.4 million tonnes of slag per year, replacing an obsolete unit, which processed 1.7 million tonnes of slag per year. Metal extraction efficiency at the new unit will be as high as 95%, which will minimize the consumption of iron ore and scrap in pig iron and steelmaking operations through replacement with recoverables.

Sergei Filatov, Novolipetsk Managing Director, said:

“The new unit will process the entire volume of our steelmaking slag, which is about 2.2 million tonnes per year, as well as allowing us to eliminate the need to process slag via third parties. The unit will also help us to recycle previously accumulated waste. This Strategy 2017 project is our next step towards increasing the role of recycling in bringing down steelmaking costs and reducing our environmental footprint.”

Project capex totalled around 500 million rubles. The economic impact of EBITDA exceeds 750 million rubles per year.

Recovering production waste is one of NLMK’s priorities as part of its operational efficiency improvement efforts. NLMK Group is currently building a new briquetting plant at the Lipetsk site. Briquettes will be manufactured from a mix of iron ore concentrate and blast furnace slag formed in the process of wet blast furnace gas cleaning.  The plant will recycle more than 350,000 of blast furnace waste per year.