No. 1 Blast Furnace Reline

Long–time client and industry leader ArcelorMittal tapped Graycor Industrial to complete this emergency project at their steelmaking facility in Lazaro Cardenas, Mexico, north of Ixtapa. The Graycor team completed the project in two months, including drilling the salamander, and removing and installing the furnace refractory from the bottom through the bosh.

In addition, the team replaced nearly 150 bosh and stack staves, along with 30 random staves damaged during the breakdown. Graycor also replaced the exterior stave piping and furnace top lip ring, and performed a partial top equipment change.

The project′s unique challenges required the combined effort of several Graycor companies: Graycor Industrial, Graycor Blasting and Graycor International. One critical challenge was overcoming the language barrier between Graycor supervisors and the Mexican workforce, which was solved through Graycor International′s multilingual resources. Graycor also coordinated the project′s materials from destinations including the U.S., China, Poland, Brazil, France and Mexico.