Dearborn, Michigan - In February 2007, Severstal North America Inc. and Graycor Industrial Constructors Inc. signed a multimillion-dollar contract to rebuild Blast Furnace “C” and three stoves at Severstal’s Dearborn, Mich., plant. The fast-paced, design-build project, which was substantially completed at the end of 2007, included a 100-day shutdown during which the existing blast furnace proper and associated gas cleaning system were dismantled and replaced down to the foundations. The Graycor team successfully completed the outage in less than 98 days. The stove rebuild portion of the project, which involves replacement of all refractory and stove dome shells, is continuing and will be completed by April 2008.

“The successful completion of this project was a major accomplishment for the entire team,” said Tom Muchesko, senior vice president, Graycor Industrial. “We used an innovative approach that required six months of planning and coordinating work prior to the outage with Severstal and more than a dozen major engineering firms, subcontractors and material suppliers, in order to complete this shutdown in under 100 days,” he explained.

“The key to our success was the preassembly of the furnace sections and major components prior to the outage,” Ted Vrehas, senior project manager, explained. “A tremendous amount of structural, plate work, refractory, piping and electrical work was completed on the ground to reduce the amount of work after the pieces were erected,” he added.

The furnace proper was then erected in five major lifts — ranging from 200 tons to 500 tons — utilizing the largest cranes available in North America to hoist the sections. After the furnace was situated, the casthouse (the building enclosing the bottom half of the furnace where hot metal and slag are tapped) was rolled into place utilizing four heavy haulers. “The team preassembled the casthouse at the same time that the furnace sections were being built, which shaved weeks off of the schedule,” Vrehas added. On average, the outage required more than 1,000 employees and subcontractors (1,300 at peak times).

Graycor Industrial also called on Graycor Blasting Co. Inc., a Graycor subsidiary, for explosive services. In July, a Graycor Blasting team used strategically placed explosive charges to break apart large iron ore deposits in the bottom of the original furnace so that the Graycor Industrial team could remove the material and finish dismantling the original furnace.

Graycor Industrial’s experience at the Dearborn plant dates back more than a decade including a mini-reline of Furnace “C” in 1996, a full reline of Furnace “B” in 1997 and repairs to furnaces “B” and “C” in 1999.

Severstal North America Inc. (SNA) is the fourth largest integrated steel producer in the U.S. SNA is a wholly owned subsidiary of OAO Severstal, one of Russia’s largest steelmakers and one of the top 15 integrated steel manufacturers in the world.