Company profile With the merger of Mittal Steel and the

 Arcelor-group in 2006 the world’s largest 

company for steel production emerged.

Today ArcelorMittal produces around one

tenth of the steel manufactured throughout 

the world. In 2007 the company achieved

a turnover of 76 billion Euro and employed

320,000 workers in more than 60 countries.

In the factory in Fos-sur-Mer, which was

once part of the Sollac Group, 3,300 workers

are employed and 4.5 millions of tons of 

steel are produced every year.

Company strategiesThe aim of the group is to expand the use

of ArcelorMittal’s steels worldwide, by 

inventing and producing steel solutions for

today and tomorrow with products that 

create outstanding value for their customers.

The company constantly tries to improve

its competitiveness by optimizing current 

industrial processes and developing new 

approaches, to reduce cost and improve

quality. This is exactly what has been

achieved by modernizing the blast furnace

 with the qualified help of Endress+Hauser.

Goals of the project • Reduction of production and

maintenance costs

• Digitize the original measurement 

procedures and thereby modernize them

• Realization of reconstruction under tight 

schedule without delay 

• Installation of the PROFIBUS technology 

to improve equipment life

Customer challenge/request  As it is generally necessary to renew an

outworn blast furnace after two decades

of continuous operation, one of the two

giants installed in the plant at Fos-sur-Mer

 was due to be revamped. At least this was

the original plan. However, while assessing 

this rebuild the need for new measurement 

devices became apparent. Blast furnace No. 1,

it was decided, was about to be digitized.

“If you want to know today, which part of 

 your car is defective the mechanic boots up

his computer to investigate. That’s what we

 want to do in the future, when maintaining 

our processes.” said Alphonse Fabiani,

electrical engineer at Fos-sur-Mer.

To control the process of raw iron

production, the automation technologies

and the measuring devices have to be

 very robust and reliable to withstand the

extremely rough conditions of the industry.

Successful project execution:Blast furnace Re-vamp

 Working hand in hand to upgrade the “old giant”

“We need solutions – not people who simply 

pass the book, to others. From Mr. Endress

to the technician on site the Endress+Hauser

team were fully committed.”

Philippe Divol

 ArcelorMittal

Results• Cost saving 

• 3.5 Mio € profit per day 

saved by project delivery 

 within schedule

• Efficiency 

• Flexibility 

• Risk reduction

 

12.06/I.I.

Instruments International

Endress+Hauser

Instruments International AG

Kägenstrasse 2

4153 Reinach/BL

Switzerland

Phone +41 61 715 81 00

Fax +41 61 715 25 00

 www.endress.com

info@ii.endress.com

CS 007Z/29/en/10.08

LL/INDD CS2

Solution providedTo meet the requirements Endress+Hauser

took care to offer a complete and optimum

solution. The project scope included not 

only the delivery of approximately 1,200

critical field devices from which 400 use

PROFIBUS PA, but also the engineering 

of the instrumentation. Additionally 

the solution included the construction

planning, commissioning, and specialized

services including training and testing.

Benefits A retrospective view of the project clearly 

shows the benefits ArcelorMittal took 

out of the work with Endress+Hauser.

In more than 5,000 working hours

Endress+Hauser could prove the quality 

of their work which saved ArcelorMittal

both time and cost. The employment of 

new and specially qualified workers as well

as their integration and training would

have been far more expensive for the steel

giant than the solution Endress+Hauser

provided. Additionally the cooperation

 with Endress+Hauser also reduced risk.

If the tight time schedule had not been

kept, the revamp would have been far

more expensive for the company, if the

production which was stopped for 90 days

in 2007 couldn’t have been started again on

time. What would have resulted would be

immense, extra costs of an average amount 

of 3.5 Mio € of profit daily.

 Another great advantage they took out of 

the technology installed in cooperation with

Endress+Hauser was new the procedures

that could be planned. These new technical

procedures within the factory at Fos-sur-Mer

derived improved financial control

 which result in reduced production and

maintenance costs.

Project organizationEndress+Hauser took the consortium

lead and were responsible for total project 

management as seen in the table above.

How did Endress+Hauser qualify toprovide this solution to ArcelorMittal?Beside the wide knowledge the

Endress+Hauser group can exhibit,

qualities such as flexibility of the workers

and their ideas, quick reaction to arising 

problems and commercial qualities all

helped to convince ArcelorMittal. In

addition to this, the appropriate price

Endress+Hauser offered for the solution

package in combination with the PROFIBUS

technology proposed. The good relationship

that has existed for over twenty years

between ArcelorMittal in Fos-sur-Mer and

Endress+Hauser France,was – of course –

another factor to chose Endress+Hauser

to work with leaving a large part of the

plant looking “blue” (Endress+Hauser

instruments color).

 At what stage did ArcelorMittal involveEndress+Hauser into their project?They contacted Endress+Hauser right at 

the start in 2003 when they began planning 

the revamp of the blast furnace. During the

following days, a contract was signed and

the most suitable design was elaborated

through a close collaboration of the two

companies. The first orders for devices were

placed in July 2006.

How long was the project lifecycle?The first contact ArcelorMittal and

Endress+Hauser had been in 2003 after

 which the engineering and planning 

followed. The actual project took place

from July 2006 to March 2008.

 Are there further projects resulting out of this one?

 ArcelorMittal have entered into

negotiations to revamp and renew the

second blast furnace in Fos-sur-Mer. Today 

it is certain that there will be an identical

project with the same team working on it,

 with exactly the same devices and the same

solution provided, which is a confirmation

for the perfectly matching solution and the

perfect cooperation between ArcelorMittal

and Endress+Hauser.

Siemens

Other participants

Suppliers

Production Center

Endress+Hauser

Third party suppliers

Partnership

Head of consortium