“The machine stops in front of the furnace and all the time he goes and comes back”, explains Antônio Gagno. “But the operator at the side cannot see the operator on the other side. So they have to communicate: ‘OK, I am at the position’ – ‘OK, you can start taking off the material’. And they do it every minute. It’s very critical because they cannot start taking off the material if the locomotive is not ready to receive the material.”

When the oven has been emptied, the flaming truckload is raised on an elevator as high as a small apartment building for the coke inside to be quenched and cooled with nitrogen. This is extracted from the air in a plant elsewhere on the site. 

Looking up at the furnaces, Mr Gagno points out that reliable radio coverage is essential in this area, and that the signal must reach both sides of this immense steel structure. “This operation is a typical one because it is very critical”, he says. “All the stop and go commands are made by radio. Other areas use PLCs and other controllers, automatic controllers, but this one is still by radio.”