From 7th to 8th July an international scientific and technical conference “New engineering solutions in production of pig-iron” was held at the Palace of Culture “Metallurg”. Representatives of leading metallurgical and machine-building enterprises of Ukraine and Russia, representatives of the Ministry of Industrial Policy of Ukraine, Industrial and Economy Association «Ìetallurgprom», Ukrainian association of pig-iron producers and Association of producers of pig-iron of Russia, and also representatives of the National Academy of Science of Ukraine and leading scientific institutes of Ukraine and Russia took part in the conference. Guests from France and Slovakia: representatives of firms “TRB” (France), «Òechservice», “Mi-Fi-Bu” (Slovakia) were also present. The event was dedicated to the 5th anniversary from the day blast-furnace ¹3 was put into operation. For the first time in domestic practice the blast furnace was equipped with a casting yard of a principally new construction. 
Innovations which were carried out in blast-furnace production at Zaporizhstal JSC in May 2000 allowed to fully catch the unorganized effluent during production of pig-iron and slag, reduce the losses of pig-iron and slag, to attain minimum consumption of refractory materials, considerably improve the conditions and improve the culture of labour of the maintenance staff.
Five-year experience of operation of the blast-furnace confirmed high efficiency of ideas and technical solutions, included in the project, giving grounds to install similar casting yards at Zaporizhstal JSC BF-2 in 2004ã., and in blast-furnace production at two Ukrainian and two Russian metallurgical Works. | 
