ArcelorMittal to reopen blast furnace in Belgium

Smelter ArcelorMittal plans to restart Kiln B at its plant in Ghent, Belgium by the middle of this month. The 2.3 million metric tons (Mt) kiln was shut down last September to replace the lining. It should be noted that this is one of two furnaces at the plant in Belgium, the total capacity of which is about 5 million tons of steel per year.

Meanwhile, the company noted that work is still ongoing to restart blast furnace # 2 at its steel mill in Taranto, Italy. The restart was originally scheduled for January 26th, but has now been postponed due to a delay caused by the new software to install the new machine. The company relaunched its smelter No. 1 in the last week of January this year. Blast furnace # 2 and smelter # 1 were temporarily closed in March last year.

The relaunch of the furnace will increase steel production in the region to 5 million tonnes, up from 3.4 million tonnes in 2020.

At the moment, of the five blast furnaces AM Italia, only furnaces # 1 and # 4 are fully operational. The largest of them, oven No. 5, was idle in 2015. Blast furnace No. 3 stood idle for a long time in 1994 and is subject to dismantling. In addition, in March this year, it is expected that furnace # 3 will be temporarily shut down for reconstruction.