Gijón (EFE).- ArcelorMittal has verified the perforation of the crucible of the blast furnace A in Gijón, where a large fire broke out yesterday during a maintenance operation at the facility.
As reported by the company in a statement on Thursday, ArcelorMittal personnel continue to work on cooling the facility in order to gain safe access and assess the damage, and the blast furnace B at the Gijón factory is still operational.
However, it has pointed out that, in a first inspection, it has been verified that a perforation has originated in the crucible, the lower part of the blast furnace where the pig iron is deposited, the molten material obtained in the blast furnace by reducing the iron ore.
The incident, which forced the evacuation of personnel, occurred at around 5:50 p.m. yesterday during a scheduled maintenance operation.
During this intervention, an internal reaction occurred due to contact of the pig iron with water inside the furnace crucible, which caused a fire that was put out by the company’s firefighters.
The reaction produced the output of pig iron through the wall of the crucible and through the nozzle that was going to be replaced, explained ArcelorMittal, which specified that the origin of the presence of water inside the crucible remains to be determined.
The fire caused by this reaction, which forced the evacuation of personnel without causing any personal injury, was brought under control at 7:00 p.m. by the ArcelorMittal fire brigade.
According to the steel multinational, no environmental impact has been recorded in the air quality control stations, both of ArcelorMittal’s own network and those of the regional network located in Gijón.
Decarbonization plan
The blast furnace A in Gijón, whose useful life was scheduled until 2025 or 2026, resumed activity on February 6 after being stopped since the end of last September due to the contraction in demand for steel products.
ArcelorMittal presented in July 2021 a plan to decarbonise its production that proposed replacing this blast furnace with a direct iron ore reduction plant, which would initially use natural gas and then green hydrogen, and a hybrid furnace of Electric arc.
Last February, the European Commission approved Spanish state aid of 460 million euros for this project, which would have an investment of 1,000 million euros and which is still pending final approval by the steel multinational. EFE