Brazilian steel company Companhia Siderurgica Nacional announced that it has restarted its second blast furnace at its Volta Redonda mill in Rio de Janeiro State after a 90day outage.

The furnace will resume production of 4,200 tonnes per day of hot metal bringing the plant’s total hot metal output up to 14,500 tonnes per day.

CSN said that “The restart of the second furnace will bring capacity utilization at the mill, which produces 5.6 million tonnes of crude steel per year, up to 90% from its current 65%.”

The blast furnace No. 2 had been shutdown for a USD 51 million overhaul. CSN said that the refurbished unit will now be able to operate for another eight years before its next scheduled outage.

(Sourced from Steel Orbis)