The decision to build the giant plant for processing and production of ferrous and non-ferrous metals has been made by the government in 1929, the construction began two years later.
In 1933 the first blast furnace was put into operation, with capacity of 960m³ the most powerful in Ukraine back then. Blast furnace no. 2 with volume of 1300m³ was built during following year and used to be the largest one worldwide for a while. In 1935 construction of the open-hearth shop was finished and the blooming mill with soaking pits area was commissioned in 1937.
Not only ukrainian metallurgy milestone represents the year 1938, when american company "United Engineering of Pittsburgh" installed brand new hot strip mill here as the very first one in whole Europe. After this the production focused on agricultural and automotive industries mainly. Dynamic development of Zaporizhstal freezed completely during the war years. The plant was shutdown and larger part of unique machineries was transported to Magnitogorsk (http://viktormacha.com/galerie/mmk-magnitogorsk-195/).
The production was restarted in 1947 by ignition of first all-welded blast furnace in the country (its construction took 34 days only).
Since 2012 the mill is part of Metinvest Holding. The annual production of 4.5 million tons of steel handles more than 14,000 employees.
Keywords: zaporizhstal, zaporozhye, metinvest, Запорожсталь, Запорожский металлургический комбинат, steelworks, ironworks, stahlwerk, huttenwerk, industriekultur, industrial photography, ukraine, záporoží, sssr, vysoká pec, blast furnace, hochofen, castingfront
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