Cokerie d’Ougrée
THE ABANDONED COKES PLANT IN BELGIUM
The ‘Cokerie d’Ougrée’ coke factory was founded by the ‘Société Anonyme d’Ougrée-Marihaye’. This Liege-based steel company owned several mines and blast furnaces.
The Ougree cokes plant was equipped with four Krupp-Koppers batteries with 139 ovens. Producing 800 thousand tons of cokes a year. It supplied the nearby blast furnaces of Ougrée and Seraing. The cokes were transported by conveyor belts.
An explosion killed 3 and wounded 26 employees in 2002. In 2010, with the increase in production thanks to the restart of blast furnace HFB, the number of ovens is expanded to 185. But HFB was shut down only one year later.
The closure of the plant in the summer of 2014 marked the end of all heavy industry in the Liège area. An agreement could not be reached between ArcelorMittal’s management and the potential buyer, American Oxbow Mining. Currently, the site is being demolished; by 2020, it is expected to be vacant and decontaminated. This plant was the final active coke plant in the Liège region and the the next to last one in Belgium.
I took these photos of the old Cokerie d’Ougrée in 2016. Also check this other three coke plants in Belgium: Zeebrugge, Marchienne and Anderlues.
