The Cherepovets Iron and Steel Works, one of the largest integrated steel plants in the world (CherMK, part of the Severstal-Russian Steel division) celebrates its 65th anniversary.
The beginning of the history of CherMK is considered to be August 24, 1955. On this day, at 15 hours 25 minutes, senior furnace F.E. Drozdov punched a tap hole, from which the first Cherepovets cast iron was released. In February 1956 the first coke was produced by a coke oven battery, in 1959 the first ingot of open-hearth steel was produced and blooming was put into operation. In subsequent years, new metallurgical capacities came into operation: blast furnaces, converters, electric steel furnaces, rolling mills for the production of sheet and products.
Today, the enterprise includes four main production facilities - coke-blast furnace, steel-making, production of flat and long products. The plant manufactures products for such sectors of the economy as construction, energy and mechanical engineering. The company employs about 25 thousand employees.
CherMK produces 11.9 million tons of steel per year. Despite the difficult market situation, the plant's capacities are loaded with orders. Thus, in July 2020, a record for the production of galvanized steel was set in workshop No. 2 for galvanized steel production - 40.8 thousand tons.
Cherepovets Steel is a key asset of the Severstal Russian Steel division, which is of strategic importance in achieving the company's goal of becoming the metallurgy leader of the future. In this regard, we are betting on an investment program, which is the most ambitious in the industry, the introduction of innovations in all areas and the digitalization of processes. Today CherMK is one of the most profitable metallurgical enterprises in the world, which once again underlines the correctness of our chosen strategy, ”commented Evgeny Vinogradov, Director of the Severstal Russian Steel division and Severstal resource assets.
At the end of the third quarter of 2020 It is planned to commission new capacities at the first stage of the CherMK technological chain - blast furnace No. 3 and coke oven battery No. 11. Investment projects worth more than RUB 60 billion are identified as key drivers of EBITDA growth and a reduction in the cost of steel production. New facilities are equipped with the best available technologies in the field of ecology and fully comply with the public's request for "green steel".
One of the steps in reducing production costs is the maximum use of the products of the company's resource assets at CherMK. The basis for this is experiments with coal and iron ore raw materials. An example of such work is the development by the employees of the plant of a substitute for coke - an innovative carbon-containing product (IPUS). This allows the use of low-value grades of coals without loss of product quality.
The priority direction in the development of the enterprise is digital technologies. This is confirmed by the introduction of mathematical models, calculators and digital twins in steelmaking, big data technologies and mathematical modeling methods to increase the productivity of equipment in rolling processing, creation of our own digital tools for quality control of metal products, creation of end-to-end dashboarding systems.
