Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works (MMK) has reached a historic milestone, with the cumulative volume of its sinter production totalling 800 million tonnes since the launch of its first sinter plant nearly nine decades ago.
Sinter is produced from iron-bearing raw materials and is the main component of blast furnace burden. MMK's sinter production dates from 26 September 1937, when it commissioned its first sinter machine and produced the first tonnes of sinter.
MMK reached the first 100-million tonne milestone of sinter output in 1961. The most recent 100 million tonnes were produced in less than ten years, with MMK reaching 700 million tonnes of sinter output in November 2016. Today, the sinter shop is part of the Company's Mining and Processing Division - the first stage in MMK's production cycle. It comprises three sinter plants with a combined capacity of 11.3 million tonnes per year. Over the past decade, MMK has reconstructed the sulphur recovery units at the sinter plants, enabling a substantial reduction in sulphur dioxide and particulate matter emissions.
A key event for sinter production at MMK was the launch of sinter plant No. 5 in 2019, attended by President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin. The new plant, which has a capacity of 5.5 million tonnes per year of high-quality, stabilised cooled sinter, became an important element in MMK's strategy to modernise the first stage of its production cycle. The commissioning of the plant enabled MMK to supply its blast furnace shop with high-quality raw materials, as well as to decommission obsolete equipment at sinter plant No. 4. This significantly reduced the Company's environmental impact by enabling a twofold decrease in dust emissions (by 2,100 tonnes per year), a fourfold decrease in sulphur oxide emissions (by 3,500 tonnes per year), and a sixteen-fold decrease in benzo[a]pyrene emissions. MMK was recognised with the "Main Event of the Year in the Russian Steel Industry" award in 2019 for the construction of its sinter plant No. 5.
MMK continues to carry out environmental efforts at its sinter shop, with current and capital repair works ongoing at the plants' aspiration systems, gas-cleaning units and electrostatic precipitators. The effectiveness of these environmental protection measures is confirmed by data from automated monitoring systems, which are transmitted online to Russia's federal environmental oversight agency (Rosprirodnadzor). In total, 12 such systems operate at the sinter shop.