Dnipro Metallurgical Plant

Dnipro Metallurgical Plant (Дніпровський металургійний завод; Dniprovskyi metalurhiinyi zavod). A plant of the ferrous-metallurgical industry, founded in 1885 in Katerynoslav (now Dnipro) by the Briansk Joint Stock Company and known as the Alexander South Russian Metallurgical Plant. Production at the plant began in 1887 and consisted mainly of rails, steel, rolled steel, and pig iron. In 1913 this was the second-largest metallurgical plant in the Russian Empire and produced over 400,000 t of pig iron. After the Revolution of 1917 the plant remained idle until 1923. By 1940 the production of pig iron surpassed 750,000 t. A third foundry, with two 100 tonnes Martin open-hearth furnaces, was added to the plant. Before the wartime evacuation in 1941 all the main metallurgical shops, cranes, and buildings were destroyed. The plant was rebuilt after the Second World War, beginning in October 1943. In 1952 production surpassed the prewar level. In 1956 the plant was the first metallurgical plant in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to introduce the L-D process of steelmaking, in which oxygen is blown from above into molten pig iron. Natural gas was introduced in the blast furnaces in 1957. The manufacture of tube metal in converters and the use of synthetic slag in the manufacture of steel have been mastered at the plant.

[This article was updated in 2019.]