Dnieper Metallurgical Plant

In the last third of the XIX century, Russia entered the period of industrial expansion. Particularly rapidly developed industry in Ekaterinoslav Province , in which the majority of the industry of the south of the country was concentrated.

The Ekaterininskaya railway built in 1884 connected the Donetsk coal and Krivoy Rog iron ore basins and passed near the village of Kamenskoye (from 1917 - the city of Kamenskoye, from 1936 to 2016 - the city of Dneprodzerzhinsk , from 2016 - the city of Kamenskoe ). The geographical location of the village (given the almost unlimited water resources) created all the prerequisites for the construction of a large metallurgical enterprise here.

In May 1886, the South Russian Dnipro Metallurgical Company (27% of the capital owned by French partners) was created as a result of the merger of the Warsaw Steel Plant Company and the Belgian company Kokkeril, which was on the verge of bankruptcy. The board of the company was located in St. Petersburg at Gorokhovaya street , 1-8, ug. Admiralty Ave.

1887–1917

In the spring of 1887, the construction of a metallurgical plant began in Kamensky ^{[3] [4] [5]} .

On March 1, 1889, the first blast furnace was blown out. ^[3] In the same year, the plant received the Big Gold Medal at the World Industrial Exhibition in Paris .

The position of the plant strengthened after the introduction in 1891 of a new customs tariff, which increased the duties on imports of iron and metal products (included in the list of products manufactured by the plant) ^[6] .

In 1896, for the high quality of the products presented at the All-Russian Industrial Exhibition in Nizhny Novgorod , the plant received the right to continue to label its products with the state emblem .

After the construction of the Siberian Railway was completed in 1901, the state order for rails was significantly reduced, and the South Russian metallurgical plants reduced the production of rails since 1901 ^[7] .

The system of fines introduced by the plant owners in combination with low wages and difficult working conditions contributed to the active participation of factory workers in the strike movement and the revolution of 1905 ^[5] .

In 1913, the plant produced 499.4 thousand tons of pig iron, 368 thousand tons of steel and 299.2 thousand tons of rolled metal ^[5] .

By the beginning of the First World War, the plant consisted of 5 blast furnaces and 10 open-hearth furnaces, Bessemer, medium-grade, iron-rolled, wire, sheet-rolling, axial and banding shops ^[5] . The plant was the largest metallurgical plant of the Russian Empire ^{[3] [5]} , it provided 13-14% of the total steel, iron and steel production in the country ^[4] .

1918–1991

During the civil war, the plant was mothballed ^[4] .

In 1919, the factory workers built two armored trains for the Red Army: “Soviet Ukraine” and “Soviet Russia” ^{[4] [5]} .

In April 1925, with the assistance of the chairman of the Supreme Economic Council, F. E. Dzerzhinsky, the plant was removed from conservation. On April 28, 1925 blast furnace No. 1 was blown out ^[3] .

September 5, 1925 - at the request of the factory workers, the enterprise was given the name of F. E. Dzerzhinsky by order of the Supreme Economic Council of the USSR ^[5] .

In 1926, 4 blast furnaces and 9 open-hearth furnaces, Bessemer, rail-beam, medium-section, iron-rolled, wire, sheet-rolling and axanding shops were commissioned at the plant ^[3] .

Further development of the plant took place in accordance with the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) of August 8, 1929 "On the work of Yugostali" ^[5] .

In 1931–1933, V. A. Saprykin worked as the chief engineer of the plant ^[8] .

In the 1930s, the plant was reconstructed and expanded ^[4] : three large fully mechanized blast furnaces, an sintering plant, a new open-hearth plant, blooming and a universal mill ^[3] were commissioned.

In the fourth quarter of 1940, the plant took the 1st place in the All-Union Socialist Competition of the USSR.

After the start of the Great Patriotic War , in 1941, the city was occupied by the advancing German troops. During the German occupation, a clandestine group operated at the plant, sabotaging efforts to put the plant into operation ^[9]

• The restoration and preparation works for the launch of the open-hearth shop No. 2 started at the end of 1941 were torn down by the workshop mechanic IK Shimansky and foreman of locksmiths V. Ya. Stanovoy ^[9]
• The electrician Dedyshko and the underground worker L. D. Kornetsky (who twice disabled the electric motor necessary for resuming the work of the mill and delayed its overhaul) ^[9]
• In open-hearth shop No. 1, as a result of the tightening of works, the restoration of furnace No. 7 lasted more than five months, and furnace No. 9 did not work for two months ^[9]
• when laying the buckets, workers added aluminum powder to the sand, and the buckets withstood only 1-2 melts instead of 19-20. In addition, the workers of the open-hearth workshop managed to hide about 160 tons of magnesite brick ^[9]

The restoration of the destroyed plant began after the liberation of the city on October 25, 1943 ^[3] , 26 days later, the plant carried out the first smelting of open-hearth steel, after 40 days the first tons of rolled products were made ^[5] . In 1944 , 1945 , 1946 - the Plant was handed Rolling Red Banners of the State Defense Committee .

After the end of the war, given the national importance, the volume and complexity of the capital restoration work, the USSR government entrusted the restoration of the metallurgical plants of the southwestern regions of the USSR to the People's Commissariat for the Construction of Heavy Industry Enterprises of the USSR. To this end, in January 1946, the Main Construction Directorate of the South was created in its structure. In 1946, a brigade of bricklayers and repairmen repaired the refractory masonry of blast furnace No. 7, which had been blown up by the occupants,: they laid 2,800 tons of refractories, mounted more than 2 thousand tons of metal structures; for 15 days instead of 40 according to the schedule, the 900-ton “goat” of the frozen metal was removed from the furnace hearth and 21 refrigerators were replaced in the furnace hearth. As a result, already on June 15, 1946 the blast furnace produced the first cast iron. On May 31, 1946, a universal mill was commissioned early for rolling strip iron up to 1050 mm wide. In 1948, blast furnace No. 8, sintering belt No. 1, a wire mill and other objects were commissioned in a timely manner ^[10] .

In 1949, the plant's production volumes exceeded the pre-war figures ^[5] . In the first quarter of 1949, the plant was awarded the title “The Best Metallurgical Plant of the Soviet Union”.

In 1966, the plant was awarded the Order of Lenin ^{[1] [3] [4]} .

In the 1970s - 1980s, the highest intensity was achieved in the work of the enterprise, its products were sent to 58 countries of the world, among which were sheet piles such as Larsen and rolled car axles.

On December 18, 1975, the first world-wide rolling mill “250” was commissioned at the plant ^[11] .

On December 18, 1979, the second stage of the “250” rolling mill was put into operation at the plant and for the first time in the world, the production of hollow rolled axles for rolling stock of railways was started ^[12] .

On December 25, 1982, a complex of an oxygen converter plant with a capacity of 2.2 million steel per year was built and put into operation ^[13] . On August 9, 1983, the oxygen-converter complex was brought to full design capacity, with daily production of 6 thousand tons of high-strength steel ^[14] .

In 1984, the plant was transformed into a combine.

In the 1980s – 1990s, the unprofitable Bessemer and open-hearth shops, several old rolling mills and auxiliary facilities were decommissioned.

After 1991

On March 3, 1995, the plant was included in the list of enterprises and organizations of Ukraine, which are not subject to privatization due to their national importance ^[15] .

In August 1997, the plant was included in the list of enterprises of strategic importance to the economy and security of Ukraine ^{[16] [17]} .

In 1999, the enterprise was reorganized into OAO Dneprovsky Iron and Steel Works named after F.E. Dzerzhinsky ".

In 2001, the company received a new name: JSC "DMK them. F.E. Dzerzhinsky ". At this time, the DMK is a city-forming enterprise, whose share in the industrial infrastructure of the city reaches 60%. It employed more than 20 thousand people - 20% of the working population of the city.

In July 2003, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine decided on the early sale of shares of the plant, which were state-owned ^[18] . Due to the technical condition of fixed assets (in the blast-furnace shop all four blast furnaces last underwent repairs of the second category more than 15 years ago, and after 1992 only repairs of the third category underwent - as a result, the shop’s fixed assets were 85% worn) 8% of MQM shares was rated at 587.1 million hryvnia ^[19] . The auction took place in December 2003 ^[20] , as a result the plant became the property of the Industrial Union of Donbass corporation.

MQM ended 2009 with a net loss of UAH 1 billion 12.066 million

In 2010, the value of the assets of the DMK was 6 billion 860.038 million hryvnia. MQM ended 2010 with a net loss of UAH 1 billion 223.325 million ^[21]

In 2011, the company employed more than 15.7 thousand people - 15% of the working population of the city.

In July 2013, MQM made scheduled preventive repair of blast furnace No. 9 and sinter machine No. 9, as well as overhaul of sinter machine No. 7 ^[22] . In general, in 2013, DMK reduced rolled steel production by 5.7% compared to the same period in 2012 (to 2.980 million tons), steel production decreased by 7% (to 2.931 million tons), and pig iron production - by 12.5% (up to 2.688 million tons) ^[23] .

After the outbreak of hostilities in eastern Ukraine in the spring of 2014, the situation of the MQM became complicated. In order to reduce dependence on natural gas supplies in May 2014, the company’s management decided to transfer the blast furnace production to pulverized coal ^{[24] [25]} . As a result of difficulties with the supply of coke, in the first half of 2014, the production of rolled products decreased by 23.3%, steel production - by 22.5% and pig iron production - by 22.1% ^[26] .

On July 27, 2015, as a result of the accident with burnout of the hearth of blast furnace No. 1, iron smelting temporarily decreased by one third ^[27] , but on August 4, 2015 the furnace was put into operation again ^[28] .

November 11, 2015 blast furnace number 12 of the plant was stopped for a major overhaul ^[29] .

In 2015, DMK reduced production by 8% ^[30] and ended 2015 with a pre-tax loss of 1.399 billion hryvnia ^[31] .

In January 2016, DMK reduced steel production to 151.9 thousand tons ^[32] .

On March 31, 2017, the Dnieper Metallurgical Plant was stopped for “hot” conservation due to the interruption of coke supplies (due to the blockade of the railway in the ATO area and the termination of shipments from the Alchevsk Coke Plant) and the shortage of working capital ^{[33] [34]} .

• N. A. Tereshchenko, A. G. Schukin. The development of metallurgy in / on Ukraine for 60 years of Soviet power. Kiev, 1977.

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