The Las Tunas Stainless Steel Company (ACINOX) processes around 100,000 liters of liquid oxygen, a necessary response to save the lives of people required for this product after being infected with the COVID-19.

Las Tunas, Cuba.- Patients from Las Tunas and other provinces have received the medicinal oxygen generated in this entity, especially since the National Liquid Oxygen Plant suffered damages and stopped working for a time until it was repaired by Cubans and foreign technicians.

Liquid oxygen is used occasionally in the Las Tunas steelworks, but not so is gaseous, which is used permanently, at a rate of 600 to 1,200 cubic meters per cast.

Eraldo González Arias, director of the company, told the Cuban News Agency that given the low availability of scrap in the country, ACINOX does not always activate its machinery and therefore stops consuming gaseous oxygen in its production process.

As the gas that is not used in the metallurgical center goes into the atmosphere, it would be very useful to have a greater storage capacity; this would expand the reserve of this resource and avoid contamination, he pointed out.

The manager highlighted the importance of installing a filling system for medical oxygen bottles in the air fractionation plant, a technology that has 32 years of life and had state-of-the-art equipment to also produce argon, nitrogen, and compressed air for workshops.

Eraldo listed what is needed to acquire the basic equipment to install a medical oxygen cylinder filling system: compressor, filling line, pressure regulators, pressure gauges, and high-pressure piping, among other components.

The processing of carbon steel is the main production line of ACINOX Las Tunas, a percentage destined for export, and another part for the manufacture of about 40 thousand tons of corrugated bars, annually.

The Company aims to triple the production of corrugated bars, based on an approved project that includes the installation of a wire rod line.