At the latest U. S. Steel Košice management meeting, Vice President Subsidiaries and General Counsel Elena Petrášková highlighted the active approach and cooperation of the teams working on the repair of air separation plant no. 7.

This scheduled repair started on April 5, but since May 3 the plant has been fully operational again. Our Power Engineering Division currently operates three air separation plants (nos. 7, 8, 9), which produce oxygen and nitrogen requied in the technological processes of the blast furnaces and steel shops, and in other USSK divisions as well. More information was provided by Miroslav Horváth, head of the Technical Gases unit: “We carry out scheduled repairs on the air separation plants after every 18-month stint of operation. Maintenance teams from the Power Engineering and Maintenance divisions led by Lukáš Galeštok and Jozef Pavlovič were principally responsible for the technical repairs. Replacement of the sprinkler air-cooling system and the around 80-meter long compressed-air supply piping network was carried out by external contractors Eco Next and PV Steel. By means of new nitrogen piping interlinkage, the technical process of heating and drying of this plant was shortened from 20 to just 9 days. This intensification of the drying process ultimately enabled the overall repair time to be reduced, but it has also led to the saving of around 600 000 m³ in the amount of nitrogen used for the air-separation drying process.”