Bruce & Merrilees' ESG team was instrumental in bringing a new steel furnace to Western Pennsylvania. B&M joined a consortium of contractors working to install a natural gas walking beam furnace at NLMK Pennsylvania in Farrell, PA.
Preliminary work began in July 2021. By January 2022, a small team of electricians was on site, wiring a new 250' smokestack for the furnace. Other electrical installations followed as the work progressed over the next 14 months.
Work at NLMK was sometimes a challenge because of the number of people on site at any given time.
"We had to coordinate with the other trades because of the tight spaces we worked in," said Regional Manager Greg P. "We had to overcome equipment being delayed and figure out workarounds."
One of the workarounds included a "cable tray to nowhere" (pictured). The steel beams surrounding the furnace were not yet installed, but our team needed to install the cable tray in order to stay on schedule. The team determined the final location of the cable tray and then used temporary scaffolding to hold it in place until the vertical beams were installed, at which time the cable tray could be permanently installed.
Another challenge came with the delay of 480V switchgear for the electrical room. To work around the delay, our team refurbished an old piece of switchgear—including cleaning the cable and the bus—and used it to provide temporary power to the furnace.
All in all, this $7.8 million project was a success for our team. We performed a safe, high quality installation for a very satisifed customer, who has invited us back to perform additional future work at NLMK.
