Striving to increase steel output per furnace as well as to improve steel quality, one of the leaders of French electric-furnace steelmaking—Ugine— has perfected a ladle slag treatment for rapid desulfurization and deoxidation. The result: tap-to-tap time reduced by more than 50 pct, and output per furnace increased by more than 200 pct. Rene Perrin, who developed this technique, also points to the possibility of applying slag treating practice to increase output of other steelmaking furnaces as well as the blast furnace