An energy-saving oxygen heat blast furnace of our own style has been successfully built at the Hwanghae Iron and Steel Complex of the DPRK.

Last year this new-type metallurgical furnace was built at the Kim Chaek Iron and Steel Complex, which has completely shaken off the fetters of cokes by establishing the system of producing iron with our 100 percent efforts, technology, raw materials and fuel, and then such a furnace has been built at the Hwanghae Iron and Steel Complex. As a result, a comprehensive system of making Juche iron has been established at the leading iron production bases, our iron-making industry has been put on a sure upturn stage of Juche orientation, and the independent foundation for national economic development has been further consolidated.

These assets are a crystallization of ardent loyalty, firm revolutionary faith and strong fighting will of the workers, scientists and technicians in the sector of metallurgical industry who are determined to erect the strong pillar of a powerful country with Juche iron, regarding the Workers’ Party of Korea’s idea of self-respect and self-sustenance as their life.

The respected Comrade Kim Jong Un made sure that bold, development-oriented and realistic targets were set to put the metallurgical industry on a Juche basis. He set forth the tasks of building another new-type oxygen heat blast furnaces at the Kim Chaek Iron and Steel Complex and the Hwanghae Iron and Steel Complex so as to increase their production capacity, wisely led the work and opened up a broad avenue for completing the system of making Juche iron.

Thanks to the outstanding leadership of Kim Jong Un, who has the ambition that the way of the country’s self-supporting economy of 50 or 100 years is to put the metallurgical industry on a Juche basis, efforts of creation and transformations were made to perfect the more developed new energy-saving iron production method and establish the system of making Juche iron at the leading iron production bases.

Scientists and technicians in the field of metallurgical industry pooled their wisdom and enthusiasm in perfecting the new method of producing iron without using cokes.

The Kim Chaek Iron and Steel Complex completed the oxygen heat blast furnace in 2018 to put production on a normal basis, and built an energy-saving oxygen heat blast furnace in 2023.

The workers, technicians and officials at the Hwanghae Iron and Steel Complex turned out as one in the construction of a new-type oxygen heat blast furnace larger than the existing one.

The builders and shock brigade members of the complex, including the construction overhaul station, repairs and maintenance shop, sheet metal processing shop, wagon repair shop, April 15 technical innovation shock brigade, modernization shock brigade, Kim Jin Shock Brigade, carried out various projects for putting production lines on a Juche basis in a three-dimensional way.

The workers of the complex completed the construction of furnace system, gasification system, floating system, which requires a year, and the manufacture and assembly of steel structures and equipment in a matter of five months and finished the construction project of 10 000 square meters of buildings, including a storehouse for raw materials, repair ground, gas distributing ground and pumping house.

Valuable research achievements and inventions were introduced into construction.

The process of drying raw materials by waste heat was newly built, and the air compressor was transformed into an oxygen compressor to meet the specific conditions and profitability of the complex. So it has brought a big profit to the state.

Researchers at the IT Institute of the Hwanghae Iron and Steel Complex developed and introduced a measuring and automatic control system for measuring the level of molten iron and slag at the floating and furnace systems and automatically regulating the amount of raw materials and oxygen.

The perfection of the method of making Juche iron in the metallurgical industrial sector provided another turning point in dynamically opening up a broad avenue for comprehensive rejuvenation by increasing the development capability of the self-supporting economy.

Rodong Sinmun