ArcelorMittal Dunkerque

Plans to establish a modern metallurgical plant in the North of France were the result of a long delay with the transition of old technologies to oxygen converters and continuous casting.

The Dunkirk integrated plant was a project of three major metallurgical companies - Usinor, Forges de la Marine and Forges de Chatilton-Commentry et Neuves-Maison, whose capacities were slowly ceasing to meet the rapidly changing trends on the global steel market.

The construction, during which 15 million tons of sand has been excavated, consumed 450,000 tons of concrete and 150,000 tons of steel beams on 450 hectares of land.

At first the heavy plate mill was put into operation in 1962.

Blast furnaces No. 1 and No. 2 follwed in 1963 together with the LD converter steel shop and the hot strip mill (manufactured by the French company CLECIM).
The Blast Furnace No. 3 was finished in 1968 and the coke plant one year later.

A major increase of production capacity was reached in 1971 with the inauguration of blast furnace No. 4, the largest in the world at the time, and the new oxygen steel plant with the very first continuous casting machine in whole France back in the day.

In 1981, the whole site was nationalized.
New coke plant was built meanwhile in 1987.
In 2002 USINOR, ARBED and Aceralia merged into Arcelor, lately known as ArcelorMittal.

Since 2015, ArcelorMittal France has joined the ResponsibleSteel™ initiative and is gradually preparing for the transition to low-carbon steel production.

Keywords: usinor, sollac, dunkerque, arcelormittal, arcelormittal france, usine sidérurgique, industriekultur, industrial architecture, industrial photography, beauty of steel project, blast furnace, hochofen, 2021

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