NLMK Indiana Receives Reliability Award for EAF Upgrade
The Association for Iron & Steel Technology (AIST) has presented NLMK Indiana with the Gold Reliability Achievement Award for its EAF upgrade project with Primetals Technologies.
The award honours the adoption of new practices, policies, or procedures that improve iron- and steelmaking reliability in North America.
Primetals carried out the modernisation of the furnace, completing a shutdown time of only six weeks until the first heat, followed by a short ramp-up period with more than 20 heats per day after four days.
A central focus of the modernisation was NLMK’s desire to increase safety and simplify maintenance at its Portage site. To tackle these challenges, Primetals developed two key solutions: a single-point roof-lifting system and an integrated gantry.
Primetals outlined that the Reliability Achievement Award not only highlights the technical success of the furnace modernisation but also the strength of the partnership between NLMK and themselves.
They continued that this project has also become a strong example of how excellent engineering, strategic planning, and project execution can produce meaningful advancements in the industry’s safety, reliability, and productivity.
The full scope of the EAF upgrade is detailed in the technical paper co-authored with Primetals Technologies, ‘NLMK Indiana EAF Modernization and Equipment Replacement,’ which will be presented at this year’s AISTech conference in Pittsburgh.