ArcelorMittal declared yesterday to invest 50 Mio. $ to restart the old Koppers coking plant in Monessen, PA.
AM purchased the plant in 2008 and idled it in 2009 due to the economic crisis.
Plans are to have the plant operational in mid 2014.
Donetskstal, the last days of Siemens-Martin
The video shows the Donetskstal open hearth shop a few days before it was closed down for good in April 2012.
Donetskstal was founded in 1870 by the Welsh engineer John Hughes.
Most installations were imported from England and iron production in one blast furnace started in 1872.
By 1910 the plant had 6 blast furnaces, 9 open-hearth furnaces, 2 Bessemer converters, blooming, rail, structural, sheet, and some section rolling mills and a a coking plant.
From 1928 to 1961 the mill was named Stalino Iron Works.
In 1953 the 2300mm plate mill was installed which is still in use today.
Blast furnace 1 was built in 1956,NO 2 one year later. Both where completly modernised in 2002 and 2006.
One of the first continuous casters worlwide was built in 1960.
Two blast furnaces and several pig iron casters are actually producing.
More inside views.
Demolition of blast furnace no. 4 started
The blast furnace Hamborn no. 4 at the ThyssenKrupp mill in Duisburg will be gone by next summer.
The furnace was built in 1964 replacing the old no. 4 that had been partly dismantled for reparation. It has a hearth diameter of 10,70 meters and a working volume of 2030m³.
The new furnace was the first one worldwide to be equipped with a bell less charging system. And it was the first in Germany to use coal powder injection.
Until May 2008, when the furnace was mothballed as a back up furnace it produced 43 mio. tons of iron.
Hoesch Phoenix Works, 1970ies
This plan shows the former Hermannshütte in Dortmund-Hörde, Germany, probably in the early 1970ies before the first continuous caster was built:
- BOF shop (Oxygenstahlwerk) closed 2001
- Open hearth shop IV ,former II (Siemens-Martin Stahlwerk IV, ehem. II) prob. closed in 1971
- Steel foundry (Stahlgiesserei) closed 1987
- Plate storage (Blechlagerhalle)
- Rolling mill 900 (900er Strasse)
- Blooming/slabbing mill (Blockbrammenstrasse) closed prob. 1985
- Heavy plate mill (Grobblechstrasse) closed 1982
- Finishing (Adjustage West)
- Finishing (Adjustage Ost)
- Roller lathe (Walzendreherei)
- Repair shop (Mechanische Werkstatt)
- Welding (Schweisserei)
- Forge (Pressbau)
- Slag mill (Schlackenmühle)
- Soaking pits (Tieföfen)
- Main storage (Zentrallager)
Today the area is transformed into a lake.
Some inside views.
Sparrows Point to be scrapped ?
In August the 120 year old steel mill east of Baltimore was sold by it’s last owner, bancrupt RG Steel, to a liquidator . Sparrows Point, once owned by the Bethlehem Steel company, was the largest steel mill in the world by the end of the 1950ies, even larger than US Steel’s Gary works.
Sparrows Point used to be the only integrated steel mill by the sea in North America. Chances for a reanimation seem to be slim.
Today the site is already widely desertet.