Poland’s Cognor contracts Fives for furnace renovation

Release time：May 28, 2019 From：min

Polish steel producer Cognor S.A. contracted Fives to implement a challenging project – the renovation of a reheating pusher furnace at its Krakow plant. The steelmaker was looking to improve furnace performance, both in terms of production availability and operational cost reduction.

The existing furnace, with an initial production capacity of 90 tons per hour, is cintegrated into a rolling mill producing merchant bars and rebars. Over the past years, the plant experienced difficulties sustainably operating the furnace at the designed production rate. The furnace has also required frequent maintenance and consumed gas excessively. The project faced a technical constraint: a furnace foundation could not be modified. Therefore, furnace dimensions have to remain the same. Fives was the only company capable of offering its proprietary technology to sustain production capacity at the reduced operational costs with the same footprint.

AdvanTek® technology for any operating conditions

In order to significantly improve furnace performance, Fives will use its proprietary combustion system – AdvanTek® technology. The AdvanTek® technology fully separates the burner capacity control and the flame length control. It is also the only combustion technology that operates the burners at the optimum capacity at any production rate and operating conditions.

As a result of this renovation, the pusher furnace capacity will be sustained at the designed level. The operational costs will decrease thanks to a 25% reduction in fuel consumption and a 40% decrease in scale. The scope of work also includes repairs of the refractories and steel structures of the soaking zone.

(Steel Prices)

The site work is  planned to start in March 2020 with the first hot product being scheduled in the second quarter of 2020.

The project will be executed by a Fives’ subsidiary in Spain, which historically specializes in long product thermal solutions worldwide. Recently, its offering has been expanded through the acquisition of certain activities of RDI-Met, a subsidiary of Fagor Arrasate (Spain), and today it covers mechanical engineering for strip processing lines, including coating lines. More information about the acquisition.