NLMK has reduced its environmental impact

NLMK Group, one of the most efficient steel companies in the world, announced improvements in the environmental performance of its facilities in Russia during the first half of 2015 amid increased production.

Steel production in 1H 2015 increased by 3 percent year on year, and the environmental impact decreased significantly:

Specific air emissions at Russian production facilities decreased by 5 percent year-on-year to 20.9 kg /t of steel, approaching the BAT (Best Available Technics) level of 18.9 kg /t of steel;

Specific water consumption fell by 7.2 percent year on year to 5.1 m³ /t, below the BAT level of 7 m³ /t;
Wastewater discharges decreased 33 percent year on year to 0.02 kg /t (BAT equals zero);

Waste products fell 6.2 percent year on year to 3.9 t /t steel.

Yuri Larin, Vice President of NLMK, said that environmental investment programs at NLMK Group's Russian plants have completed 6 new environmental projects since the beginning of the year, and more than 13 are underway.

The bulk of NLMK Group's environmental projects in the first half of 2015 within the framework of the 2020 Environment Program were aimed at reducing air emissions and optimizing waste disposal.

At Lipetsk (the main production site in Lipetsk), the following was carried out:

A full-scale project for the biochemical treatment of waste water from the facility in the production of coke and chemical operations of steel. This provides a twentyfold improvement in the quality of wastewater treatment for reuse in a closed loop.

A new module for blast furnace slag processing was launched, which made it possible to switch to a safe slag cooling technology and to reduce hydrogen sulfide emissions by 8 times.

A number of projects have been implemented to reduce dust emissions. Now the implementation of a large-scale project to introduce new technical solutions in the oxygen-converter shop 2 with an annual capacity of 5.1 million tons of steel is ongoing, which will reduce specific emissions into the atmosphere by more than 50 percent.

In May 2014, NLMK Group announced an Environmental Program until 2020 aimed at investing more than RUB 10 billion in environmental initiatives and projects at NLMK Group enterprises.