A solemn ceremony devoted to the shutting down of Karabashmed’s third and last shaft furnace took place in Karabash, Chelyabinsk Region. The ceremony was attended by the plant’s top executives, the oldest workers, the mayor of the town and the town council deputies. A group of metallurgists made a little show of completing their last melting operation and extinguishing the fire in the furnace.

As the plant’s press officer said to UrBC, their three shaft furnaces had been operating for nearly eighty years and were replaced with some new, hi-tech, and environmentally friendly equipment (including an Ausmelt furnace, modern recycling and purifying facilities, and some items for sulfurous production process)

‘The fact that we stopped using these shaft furnaces proves that Russian Copper Company does intend to develop its business. The company now has a way of both expanding and upgrading our production processes through introducing some more reliable, more effective, and less environmentally hazardous equipment. I’d like to emphasize that doing no harm to the environment is our top priority at the moment,’ says Karabashmed’s Chief Engineer Igor Karnaukhov.

In 2008, three new converters provided by the Finnish Kumera will come to replace the old production line. The company’s press officer says the new technologies are believed to help make the whole copper production process computer-aided and enhance its environmental safety.

The reconstruction of the plant began early in 2007 when the new Ausmelt furnace was launched there. As a result, Karabashmed’s production output more than doubled and reached 90,000 tons of blister copper a year.

‘Doing away with the obsolete equipment is a big thing for the town of Karabash. It’s actually a great step on the way to solving the area’s environmental problems. The town can now move on to things like switching to new technologies as well as handling the socially important issues,’ notes Mayor of Karabash Mussa Dzugaev.