Oviedo (EFE).- The Vice President of the Principality, Juan Cofiño, stated this Monday that the investments planned by ArcelorMittal in Asturias are not in danger after the accident that has paralyzed blast furnace A in Gijón.
“We do not believe at all that investments in the short, medium and long term are at any risk,” said Cofiño in response to questions from journalists.
In addition, the Minister of Autonomous Administration, Environment and Climate Change has trusted that the oven is “recoverable”.
ArcelorMittal is going to proceed in the next few hours to empty the blast furnace to assess the damage, although it has already verified the perforation of the crucible, the lower part where the pig iron is deposited, the molten material obtained by reducing the ore of iron.
The incident, which caused a large fire, occurred last Wednesday during a scheduled maintenance operation, when an internal reaction occurred due to contact of the pig iron with water inside the furnace’s crucible.
After the forced stoppage of the blast furnace, the management of the steel company has raised with the unions a Temporary Employment Regulation File (ERTE) due to force majeure that would affect some 7,000 workers of its workforce in the Asturias cluster, which includes the plants of Asturias, -Gijón and Avilés-, Sagunto, Etxebarri and Lesaka.
The blast furnace A in Gijón, whose useful life was scheduled until 2025, 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