SAFETY HEADLINESSafety
Severstal NA Halts Production at Blast Furnace Pending Investigation
Jan. 14, 2008 Severstal North America confirmed that it has halted production at its small blast furnace (Blast Furnace B) as a result of an accident on January 5 at that facility.
As the company continues to investigate the cause of the accident, it said production at Blast Furnace B would be curtailed pending a comprehensive damage assessment.
Blast Furnace B, which is the smaller of Severstal North America’s two furnaces, is used to produce pig iron for subsequent conversion into steel. B Furnace's daily production is 1800 tons. Although the company’s primary blast furnace—Blast Furnace C, a newly rebuilt state-of-the-art facility—was completely unaffected by the accident, the company said it was likely to be temporarily suspended as part of the overall investigation.
Blast Furnace “B” was in regular operation when eruption breached the furnace. A passing on-site contractor was injured in the accident.
The company said that it would report further information, including the duration of the outage and its likely impact on production, as it becomes known.
No statement has been released as yet regarding a second accident that was reported to have occurred late last week at the facility.