HFX Florange Blast Furnaces: France June 2017

Blast furnaces have been on this site since the turn of the 20th century.

Originally six furnaces P1 to P6 were running here until the 1970’s. At this time P3, P4 and P6 recevied major upgrades based on American designs which increased efficiency and capacity with P4 becoming the largest blast furnace in Europe at the time. The remaing three furnaces were mothballed and later decomissioned.

The blast furnaces produce liquid hot metal by melting iron ore in a reducing atmosphere. By Melting the iron ore in a reducing atmosphere the oxygen can be removed.

The raw materials used in the blast furnace, Coke and sinter are loaded into the blast furnace via the charging conveyor. As the load in the blast furnace comes down, the conversion into liquid hot metal takes place with the aid of hot air being blown into the bottom of the blast furnace. The hot air reacts with the coke, this forms a reduction gas, which removes the oxygen from the iron ore. The liquid metal is then collected and transfered to the steel shop.

The blast furnaces were mothballed during 2011 and 2012 at the cost of over 600 jobs with false promises of them opening again, the problem was these promises were made by the government and not the owners of the site. They were kept maintained for future tests in enviromentally friendly steel production, I am unsure if these tests were ever carried out.

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