| The company's largest producer of rolled aluminum products is under threat of shutdown The Siberian-Ural Aluminum Company (SUAL) may be adversely affected by the explosion that occurred last Friday in one of the workshops of its Kamensk-Ural Metallurgical Plant (KUMZ, Sverdlovsk region). Based on the results of checking the causes of the incident, the Ural Department of the State Mining and Technical Supervision of the Russian Federation may suspend the license for the right to operate smelting equipment issued to the enterprise. In fact, this will mean an indefinite shutdown of the entire KUMZ.
KUMZ began work in 1942. Today it is the largest producer of rolled aluminum in the structure of SUAL. Last year it produced about 54 thousand tons of products. Over the nine months of this year, production growth amounted to 46.6%. KUMZ's turnover last year exceeded 2.8 billion rubles. More than 90% of products are produced by melting aluminum ingots supplied from the Ural Aluminum Smelter.
The explosion of the melting furnace in the foundry No. 36 of KUMZ occurred on the night of October 26. As a result, eight people were injured, one of whom subsequently died. This year this is the second such incident in this workshop - on June 12, a worker was killed as a result of the same explosion.
The latest events at KUMZ caused a sharp reaction from representatives of Gosgortekhnadzor, which monitors the safety of work at industrial enterprises. As the head of the Ural Department of the State Mining and Technical Supervision Vladimir Mironov told the Vremya Novostey newspaper, in order to prevent such incidents, a decision may be made to suspend the KUMZ license for the right to operate smelting equipment. “We cannot allow a situation in which we would step on the same rake for the third time,” says Mr. Mironov. According to him, since Saturday the Gosgortekhnadzor commission has been investigating the causes of the explosion. She must present the result of her work two weeks later. “The check will allow us to outline a list of measures and the time frame within which they must be completed in order to prevent similar emergencies in the future,” says Vladimir Mironov. As soon as the shortcomings are corrected, the license will be renewed.
Deputy head of the department for supervision in the metallurgical industry of the State Mining and Technical Supervision of Russia Vladimir Matrokhin considers sanctions against KUMZ quite possible. "They should have taken appropriate measures after the first explosion," he says. Meanwhile, if the license is revoked, it will be the first such case in Russian practice.
For now, SUAL is cautiously commenting on the statements of representatives of Gosgortekhnadzor. According to the director of the company’s PR department, Alexey Goncharov, based on the results of the KUMZ inspection, “conclusions will be made, on the basis of which appropriate measures will be taken.” But experts interviewed by the Vremya Novostey newspaper consider harsh statements to be premature. “Gosgortekhnadzor was a little hasty,” says Yuri Mikhailov, deputy head of the non-ferrous metallurgy department of the Ministry of Industry and Science. “You can’t say that before the commission’s conclusions are announced.” Vice President of the non-profit partnership “Aluminium” Vladimir Kalchenko notes that in any metallurgical production the possibility of an emergency cannot be ruled out. Thus, in the early 1990s, a much more powerful explosion occurred in the foundry shop of the Bratsk Aluminum Plant. Dmitry SIMAKOV |
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