The Russian mining and metal company Mechel OAO announces that its Electric Arc Furnace No. 2 at its Tikhvin Ferroalloy Smelting Plant was started up after its repair.
Electric Arc Furnace No. 2 at Mechel's Tikhvin Ferroalloy Smelting Plant subsidiary was commissioned on May 27, 2009. With the new EAF, the plant has three currently operating, with one EAF remaining in stand-by mode.
From October 2008, the plant's operations were limited due to decrease in demand for its products and increased prices for imported chrome ore.
From October 2008 to May 2009, ferrochrome was smelted with only two furnaces operating at reduced levels. Owing to such measures, the plant managed to keep its operability and staff composition. During that time, scheduled maintenance was performed by the plant's own personnel, which enabled increasing the equipment's effectiveness.
During the slow production time, the plant made a number of repairs and changes to improve efficiency.
From January 2009, steady supplies of high quality chrome ore commenced from the new Voskhod chrome mining plant in Kazakhstan, which is a part of Mechel's ferroalloy sub-holding, Oriel Resources Ltd. At the same time, increase in demand for high-carbon ferrochrome was observed on the markets from April 2009. Combination of these two factors made it possible to increase utilization of the plant's capacity.
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