Anshan Metallurgical Combine

a very large metallurgical combine in the city of Anshan, China. The combine includes an iron-ore enterprise, concentrating and agglomerating plants, metallurgical works with blast furnaces and open-hearth shops, rolling mills, coking byproduct and magnesite plants, the production of refractory materials, and a thermal electric power station (220 megawatts). Directly associated with the metallurgical combine are plants for producing acids and mineral fertilizers and a mining equipment factory. Approximately 100,000 people worked in the Anshan metallurgical combine in 1968.

The Anshan metallurgical plant was built between 1916 and 1918 by Japanese capitalists who had obtained a concession to develop iron ore. During the Japanese occupation of China (from 1931) the plant was remodeled into a combine. Military activity during the late 1940’s damaged the combine heavily. After the formation of the Chinese People’s Republic (1949) the Anshan metallurgical combine was reconstructed and enlarged with the help of the USSR; scientific-technical achievements of Soviet metallurgy were incorporated in the production facilities. This made it possible to raise the technical-economic indexes (the utilization factor of available blast furnace volume and the average daily steel output per square meter of open hearth) to the highest level in the world. Between 1953 and 1960 reconstruction was carried on, and the production output of the combine in cast iron, steel, and rolled metal was substantially increased. During 1958, 4.5 million tons of steel were smelted by the combine. From 1961 to 1963 the expansion of the combine sharply slowed, and a drop in production occurred. In 1964 work began on an enlargement of the combine.

In 1967 there were ten blast furnaces with a daily output of 350 to 2,000 tons of cast iron, 24 open-hearth furnaces of which the two largest had capacities of 500 tons each, 17 coke oven batteries, and over 20 rolling mills. During 1965–66 the combine annually smelted over 5 million tons of steel (approximately half of China’s total production). The major portion of the iron ore, coking and heating coal, dolomite, magnesite, and other raw materials for the combine are obtained from the pits and mines of Liaoning Province, located nearby.