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Seven Refractories Russia repairs biggest blast furnace to date


The record-breaking blast furnace repair was suitably conducted by the largest organisation within Seven Refractories. “Our Russian team has done a truly great job and surpassed itself”, comments Roman Cheglov, Group VP Sales and Technique, with pride. “A blast furnace of 5.500 cubic metres is a huge beast. In that order of magnitude, a repair it is an enormous task.”


Grants for Growth


Langley Alloys approached the Grants for Growth team at Stoke-on-Trent City Council for help with funding for a new capital expenditure project. Langley Alloys were looking to purchase an additional CNC lathe to increase the company’s capacity and allow them to provide extra services to their customers. As part of their investment, the company created 4 new high skilled jobs in the Stoke and Newcastle area. Langley Alloys secured £40,000 worth of grant funding enabling them to move forward with their project.


Kevan Sawyer, Finance Director of Langley Alloys said,


“As a company, we are keen to expand our current offering to include additional value-added services. Having been based in the local area for so long, we also wanted to retain a skilled workforce in the area. The funding provided by the Grants for Growth programme has not only allowed us to purchase new equipment but also expand our workforce accordingly to meet customer demand.”


This investment means that Langley Alloys have been able to broaden the range of services on offer to its customers. Besides in-house testing and inspection, they are now able to offer a range of first-stage machining, including deep hole boring, CNC machining and milling. This enables them to save their customers time and cost, by bringing more of the operations together under one roof.


Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire Grants for Growth is delivered by


Stoke-on-Trent City Council and is part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). It provides gap funding for capital projects to companies across the whole of Staffordshire.


Severstal had prepared the repair of its Blast Furnace 5 called Severyanka in Cherepovets thoroughly, going through a meticulous tender process. In the end, Seven Refractories was chosen above all national and international competitors to plan, supervise, and perform the repair.


“We are of course proud that we beat all competitors in the tender for this huge project. Severyanka is the biggest blast furnace in Russia”, explains Denis Smirnov, Managing Director of Seven Refractories Russia


The sheer numbers alone speak for themselves: A diameter of 12 metres. 100 tons of shotcreting material. A gigantic size of 5.500 cubic metres. A daily output of 15.000 tons of pig iron.


Seven Refractories teamed up with its trusted partner Refracon Installations for the shotcreting of the blast furnace’s upper lining. In addition to sheer size, the repair was the very first robotic repair of the non-cooled stack of the furnace.


Parkinson-Spencer Refractories at Gulf Glass 2019 in Dubai


Gulf Glass is the region’s largest Glass event, showcasing over 170+ leading brands of glass machinery, glass processing technology, tools, finished products and so much more. Attracting thousands of architects, consultants, operation managers, procurement heads and other key decision makers within the industry, Gulf Glass receives visitors from over 60 countries around the world who are actively looking for glass related products, technology and services.


PSR's Managing Director, Simon Parkinson, will be in attendance in the Sheikh Maktoum Hall on Stand A127, 24-26 September 2019.


After finalization of the project and thorough checks, the blast furnace was started up again to full performance. Smirnov adds: “Due to the size and difficulty we selected only the very best and experienced colleagues to ensure everything worked perfectly. I wish to thank everyone involved for getting Severyanka back to work so quickly and perfectly and for exceeding our client’s expectations.”


“We are very proud that our largest organisation performed this project and that we managed to save the client 12 hours of repair time. Time is money. The normal rule of thumb is that every day a blast furnace is standing still equals roughly a million US dollars. So you can do the math”, adds Cheglov.


September 2019 Issue


17


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