Romanian integrated steel mill Liberty Galati, part of British group Liberty, has completed an investment project worth EUR 13.5 million for modernizing the air preheater at one of its blast furnaces. The project will improve the operating performance and reduce costs, the company announced in a press release.

The GFG Alliance, led by Indian billionaire Sanjeev Gupta, which owns the Galati plant, announced that it plans EUR 1 billion investments at the Galati unit. These would be carried out through a ten-year program, which includes modernizing the casting, rolling mills, and coating lines and installing an electric arc furnace to reduce carbon emissions.

"This complex project is an essential and far-reaching modernization that ensures the maintenance of the continuity of the hot flow, improves our efficiency, and reduces costs," says Bogdan Grecu, general manager of Liberty Galati.

The modernization work was carried out by specialized suppliers from Romania, Luxembourg, Germany, and Portugal, together with the plant's experts.

The air preheater or cauper is a piece of high-capacity equipment, with a height of over 40 meters, which ensures the preheating of the air blown into the furnace at a temperature of about 1,200 degrees Celsius. The final hot tests are currently being performed, but the equipment has already been introduced into the production flow after the parameters have reached the projected values.

Liberty Galati is the largest integrated steel plant in Romania, with a workforce of about 7,600 people and a current production capacity of about 2 million tonnes of steel per year for customers in construction, naval, oil and gas, and renewable energy production.

editor@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Liberty Galati on Facebook)