The Company’s new 150 MW Recovery Cogeneration Plant has started receiving and processing BF gas from Blast Furnace No. 7 currently being hot tested at NLMK.
With the new plant, Novolipetsk (NLMK’s Lipetsk site) generation capacity will increase by 45% to 482 MW, bringing the level of energy self-sufficiency up from 47% to 56% even given the expansion of the NLMK’s BF and steelmaking capacities. The project is worth RUR6.8 billion, with the bulk of investments covered by borrowed funds.
The European Bank of Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has extended a EUR125 million credit to finance this project, and awarded it with a prize for its model integrated energy saving strategy, the promotion of best management practices and skills using innovative environmental technologies and energy consumption solutions. As a result, gross emissions will be reduced over 15 fold.
Associated gas is supplied to waste heat boilers for the generation of high pressure steam and, eventually, electric power. The Company has thus embarked on its environmental program aimed at the efficient use of secondary energy resources and the complete recycling of BF gas (a byproduct of main metallurgical processes).