Peter Kehl (Manager)

Peter Kehl (* 6. July 1935 in Schlotheim in Thuringia ) is a German engineer of metallurgy and manager of the German steel industry and European cement industry in retirement.

Life

Peter Kehl attended elementary and secondary school in Ohrdruf in the Gotha district in Thuringia from 1941 to 1953 , where he graduated from high school in 1953. He then completed an internship at VEB Maxhütte Unterwellenborn and studied metallurgy at the Bergakademie Freiberg . In 1955 he decided to flee from the GDR to the Federal Republic of Germany and began studying iron and steel there again at RWTH Aachen University . In the winter semester of 1955/56 he joined the Corps Saxonia-Berlin. He completed his studies in 1960 as a Dipl.-Ing. from.

In 1960 he went to Salzgitter Hüttenwerke AG, where he was a production engineer in the blast furnace and steel works . In 1965 he became assistant director to the CEO of Salzgitter AG . In 1968 he was appointed chief engineer and head of the staff units on the technical board of Salzgitter AG. In 1970 he moved to the Korf Group as managing director of Hamburger Stahlwerke GmbH . In this role, he was responsible for the planning, construction and commissioning of the first integrated smelting works based on the direct reduction of iron ore to steel. In 1973 he was appointed spokesman for the management of Hamburger Stahlwerke GmbH.

In 1980 he moved to the Mannesmann Group as director for new buildings and investments at Mannesmann AG Hüttenwerke . In 1982 he took over the management of the Huckingen iron and steel works of the Mannesmannröhren-Werke AG as works director . Under the management of Kehl, the location was restructured and modernized to secure the future. Between 1980 and 1985 the workforce decreased from 9,500 to 5,750. Almost 1 billion DM were invested in the modernization of the location. After the closure of three smaller blast furnaces, pig iron production was concentrated on two modern large blast furnaces. The proportion of continuous cast tube raw material was increased to 80%. With the construction of the world's largest changeover converter system, it was possible to concentrate crude steel production from two blow-molding plants to one blow-molding plant. The construction of a new coking plant with an annual capacity of 1.1 million tons of coke in a single coke oven battery was also part of the modernization program. Overall, productivity at the Huckingen location was increased by 40%. This created the prerequisites for the takeover of the crude steel production of the Krupp steelworks in Rheinhausen, completed in 1990.

In December 1985, Kehl became a board member of Stahlwerke Peine Salzgitter AG. Here he was responsible for the technology department. Under his leadership, the Group's productivity was consistently improved. When he left the board in November 1990, significant productivity improvements had been achieved in all production areas.

At the beginning of 1991 Kehl switched to Readymix AG, which belongs to the English RMC Group . He became managing director of Rüdersdorfer Zement GmbH, which Readymix founded after acquiring VEB Zementkombinat Rüdersdorf from the Treuhandanstalt in 1990. Before the fall of the Wall , the Rüdersdorfer cement works was the largest building material processing company in the GDR. Here he carried out a complete restructuring. In just a few years, after investing 300 million euros, he was able to increase the level of productivity, reduce dust emissions by more than 90% and significantly reduce fuel costs. He succeeded in replacing the previously used primary fuels coal and natural gas with secondary fuels up to 40%, a peak value not previously achieved in the cement industry worldwide. In 1995, Kehl was appointed spokesman for the management of Rüdersdorfer Zement GmbH and at the same time was appointed to the management of Readymix Zement GmbH, in which all cement activities of Readymix AG were brought together. Readymix acquired production sites in Poland and Latvia in the mid-1990s. Kehl pushed modernization measures at all production sites. Towards the end of his career, he was responsible for the production of eleven cement plants in Germany, Poland and Latvia with a total capacity of approximately 10 million t. The Rüdersdorfer Zementwerk is considered to be one of the leading cement factories in Europe in terms of environmental protection, productivity, size and cost leadership.

Honorary positions and awards

On September 28, 1992 Peter Kehl was elected Vice President of the Frankfurt (Oder) Chamber of Commerce and Industry . He held the office until his retirement in July 2000, when he was appointed honorary president of the Frankfurt (Oder) Chamber of Commerce. In the summer semester of 2014, the Corps Rhenania ZAB awarded him the Corpsschleife .

Publications and lectures

• W. Maschlanka, H. Knapp, P. Kehl: The Use of the Midland-Ross Direct Reduction Process in Steel Works of Small to Medium Capacity. Economic Commission for Europe (ECE). International Symposium on Direct Reduction of Iron Ore. Bucharest, September 18-23, 1972.
• P. Kehl, H. Voss: The Use of Metallized Pellets in Electric Arc Furnace Steelmaking Process . International Symposium on Direct Reduction of Iron Ore. Bucharest, September 18-23, 1972.
• P. Kehl, E. Förster: Operating results of the direct reduction according to the Midrex process . International Ironworks Technology Congress, Düsseldorf May 27-30, 1973.
• P. Kehl: The Hamburg Steel Plant, an Example for Producing Steel on the Basis of Direct Reduced Ore. In: Iron and Steel Engineer. November 1973, pp. 35–39 (Presentation at the annual meeting of the Association of Iron and Steel Engineers 1973 in Chicago)
• P. Kehl: Use of natural gas for the direct reduction of iron ore . Main conference of the German gas and water sector, Travemünde, May 28, 1974.
• P. Kehl: Contribution to the Question Concerning the Most Economic Degree of Metallization of Direct Reduced Ore . Direct Reduction Conference, Porto Alegre, May 4-9, 1975
• P. Kehl, P. Scur, R. Wirthwein: New construction and first operating results of kiln line 5 in the Rüdersdorf plant of Readymix Zement GmbH. In: ZKG International. Volume 50, No. 1, 1997, pp. 20-34.
• P. Kehl, K.-F. Scharf, P. Scur, R. Wirthwein: The first 30 months of operating results with Rudersdorfer Zement's Kiln No. 5. In: Cement Industry Technical Conference, 1998. 40th Conference Record. 17-21 May 1998, pp. 247-291.
• P. Kehl, K.-F. Scharf, P. Scur, R. Wirthwein: The operating results from the first 30 months with the new kiln line 5 in the Rüdersdorf cement works. In: ZKG International. Volume 51, No. 8, 1998, pp. 410-426.
• P. Kehl: Practical experience with 30 months' use of solid alternative fuels at Ruedersdorf Cement. 1999.

literature

• Peter Kehl is retiring; Peter Kehl retires. In: ZKG International . Volume 53, No. 8, 2000.
• Horst A. Wessel: The technical manager of the Huckinger iron and steel works 1909–1997. Düsseldorf 1998, pp. 35-36.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Carl Weigandt: History of the Corps Saxonia-Berlin, 1867-1967. Aachen 1968, p. 302.
2. ↑ Thomas Flemming, Bernd Ulrich: Economy on the move - 20 years of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce for East Brandenburg. Frankfurt (Oder) 2010, ISBN 978-3-9813732-0-2 .
3. ↑ Sachsenblatt. October 2014, p. 10.

Web links

• The cement works of CEMEX Germany. ( Memento from February 5, 2013 in the Internet Archive )