STRATEGY

The plant belonged to the Bogoslovsky Mining District. At the time of foundation, the plant was named Nadezhdinsky in honour of the district’s owner, Mrs. Nadezhda Polovtsova. She was wife to Mr. A.A. Polovtsov, a privy councillor in deed and a member of the State Council.

The plant designing and construction was supervised by Mr. Alexander Auerbach, a famous mining engineer and the chief executive of the Bogoslovsky Mining District. The plant included a blast furnace shop, an open-hearth shop, a rolling shop, and a servicing shop.

On January 19, 1896, first steel was produced. March 03, 1896 is considered as the plant’s foundation date. In the pre-revolutionary Russia, Nadezhdinsky Plant was considered to be the largest one in terms of production scale and technological infrastructure in the Ural-based metallurgy. Between 1913 and 1930, the plant manufactured over 20% of all ferrous metals in the Ural region. Nadezhdinsky Metallurgical Plant was assigned an important role to provide the national economy with high-quality steels.

The main products were railway rails, roofing iron sheets, profiled iron and shell billets as well as refractories. In 1931, the plant started rolling varisized round and square billets. That was the time of a radical turn in the plant’s development when it changed its production specialization. The production of railway rails and roofing iron sheets was discontinued and the plant started manufacturing quality steel bars for machine engineering.

In 1939, the city of Nadezhdinsk was renamed as Serov and the plant was given the name of the Hero of the Soviet Union, Anatoly K. Serov. He used to be a steel founder and then became a legendary pilot in the 1930s and died in battle. For over 70 years, the plant was known as “Metallurgical Plant named after A.K. Serov”.

The plant mastered the smelting and rolling of over a hundred of various steel grades alloyed with chromium, molybdenum, nickel, vanadium, and titanium and became the most significant steel supplier for the needs of the country’s defense. In 1946, the plant was awarded with the Order of the Red Banner of Labour both for successful implementation of the governmental task to produce steel for the national economy needs and on the occasion of the plant’s 50th anniversary. That year the sintering shop was also placed into operation.

In 1975, the plant commissioned new machinery in the calibration shop to manufacture oil pump rods and submersible pump rods.

In 1995, the Expert Economic Council resolved to issue a certificate of the Russian Federation that confirmed the plant’s status of ‘the Leader of the Russian Economy’ based on the U.N. Industrial Development Board methodology.

JSC Metallurgical Plant named after A.K. Serov merged with MMC Holding. The revamping program was approved. It envisaged the transition from the open-hearth production to the electric arc furnace technology.

On October 23, 2007, the last open-hearth melting took place. The metallurgical plant fully transitioned to the electric arc furnace melting technology. Steelmaking pollutant emissions into the environment decreased by 6 times.

The plant started upgrading the sintering shop. That was one of the major projects under the environmental programme that provided for installation of a gas scrubbing system to significantly reduce dust emissions and ensure fume desulfurization.

The subsidiary returned to its original name, Nadezhdinsky Metallurgical Plant.

In 2017, the preparation was done to sign a contract for performance of a feasibility study required to upgrade the casting area and production of commercial rolled steel and incoming materials for the long product rolling shop. The plant’s social facilities improvement programme was launched.

In 2018, the plant is building a 24.9 MW mini-CHPP (combined heating & power plant) that will supply power to all major plant shops, except for the EAF-80 melting installations and the ladle refining installation.