The metallurgical company U.S. Steel Košice is getting ready for a large energy investment. The steelmaker plans to modernise and reconstruct its coal-fired boilers for some €80 million euros.
The investment will secure steam production for technological purposes by burning coal in a new granulation boiler. The installed capacity of the new boiler should be 208 megawatts. The company has already submitted its investment plan for Environment Impacts Assessment (EIA). The division Energetika of the company operates three gas-fired boilers and three coal-fired ones.
The coal boilers that also burn metallurgic gases (30 percent of their performance) will not comply with the new emission limits after 2016 set for big sources of pollution, the SITA newswire wrote on October 15. Within the investment project, the steelmaker is set to replace steam production using coal with a new higher efficiency source of steam. After the project is implemented, boilers in the steel plant will fulfil new emission limits and the total volume of polluting agents in the atmosphere will drop. The steelmaker should launch the project next year. Its completion is planned for 2015.
Parliament is expected to pass, at its next session, the amendment to the law on support on renewable energy sources which shall, among other things, implement support for so-called preferred fuel with gas produced in steel-making processes to be included among secondary energy sources. This should prove advantageous U.S. Steel, as the amendment would secure financial support also for its Košice plant. The government pledged to pass the amendment also in the memorandum signed with the Košice-based steelmaker after the latter had announced plans to leave Slovakia.
Opposition MPs dislike this plan and argue that if the amendment is approved, Košice plant will “get a gift” of €225 million over 15 years for support of gas that is already produced during production.
(Source: SITA)
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
