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Last Saturday, blast furnace 7 at the former Thyssen Ruhrort works has been demolished. Over at Industrial Light and Magic, some photos of the event. Blast Furnace 8, the last one remaining, will face demolition within the next weeks. Due to bad weather, the photos are not too good, and due to a short announcement time, I had to take them from outside of the plant - we are currently working on an entry permission for the next (and final) event.

RUHRORT PLANT - OVERVIEW

• 1992 - Blast furnace plant Ruhrort (eight furnaces in total, four remaining, two operational) shut down. Brand-new Schwelgern 2 furnace - with a whopping hearth diameter of 14.9 meters the largest one in Europe - easily replaces and extends the Ruhrort plant capacity. One furnace torn down
• 1995 - Blast furnace 6 sold to India
• 1997 - ThyssenKrupp sells the steel mill and all other facilities to ISPAT. Today, ISPAT Stahlwerk Ruhort produces 1.3 million tons of low residual steel using two 140 tons LD converts, various secondary metallurgical equipment, a six strand bloom caster and a six strand billet caster. The hot iron is bought in from the nearby ThyssenKrupp blast furnace mills

BUT THERE IS MORE
In no other recent year, more industrial and mining facilities have been torn down than this fall. Within the last seven days alone (most links point to sites in German language) the following buildings and landmarks fell:

• Saturday 13: Blast Furnace 7, Duisburg Ruhort - demolished
• Sunday 14: Konrad Adenauer Haus, Bonn - demolished
• Wednesday 17: Vetschau power plant - demolished
• Thursday 18: Hugo coal mine, pit 8 - demolished
• Friday 19: Heinrich Robert coal mine, pit Franz - demolished
• Friday 19: Hoerde Torch, Dortmund - demolition postponed to 2004-01-24

An upcoming subsite here at hebig.org will cover the subject more deeply - stay tuned.

Industrial Light and Magic: Ruhrort Gallery >