Steel Times International November December 2022

CONFERENCE REPORT NORTH AMERICAN STEEL PERSPECTIVES DECARBONISATION

We report from the Badische-Stahl Symposium in Germany. Can the US steel industry get any greener? Myra Pinkham finds out.

The role of home-produced waste in the greening of the UK steel industry.

LAP Measurement Technology are the subject of this month’s Q&A.

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November/December 2022 - Vol.46 No8

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With ‘green’ steel it’s not a case of all or nothing

Towards the end of the summer I found myself in Sweden. I was there to interview Mark Bula, chief commercial officer at H2 Green Steel. The article was published in last month’s issue of Steel Times International and has been wellreceived by the industry at large. While in Stockholm I dropped into the offices of Rutger Gyllenram, founder and CEO of Kobolde & Partners, and we got chatting about green steelmaking. I suggested we put something on tape and the interview can be found on p42 of this issue.

For Rutger, the whole notion of ‘either we reach the top or we don’t go anywhere’ is misguided when it comes to green steelmaking. Yes, there are ambitious companies out there, like H2 Green Steel and HYBRIT, but most steelmakers will not reach that level for a very long time, he said.

about standards, degrees of ‘greenness’ and how the steel industry’s customers of the future will likely be presented with varying levels of ‘green’ steel. There might be the Holy Grail – that of ‘fossil-free’ steel (think HYRBIT and H2 Green Steel) but what about ‘climate-improved’ steel or ‘climate neutral’ steel? In other words, not fossil-free, but steel to which something has been done (think offsetting or carbon capture and sequestration).

For Rutger, standards – or levels of ‘greenness’ – are essential in the aforementioned ‘brave new world of green steelmaking’ and yes, fossil-free is best, the gold standard, but there are alternatives and ‘we’ll have to see where we land in the future,’ said Rutger.

Matthew Moggridge Editor matthewmoggridge@quartzltd.com

Kobolde & Partners has been auditing new steelmaking technologies and so far has listed 25 initiatives, some of which are very ambitious and others less so, highlighting a potential issue with standardization and posing the question: What is green steel? What indeed! Well, Kobolde’s audit got the company thinking

In the USA where, by 2050, it is estimated that 90% of steelmaking will be handled by EAFs, it is believed that hydrogen-based EAF steelmaking could cut emissions by 91%. Unfortunately, the costs would increase by 20% per ton of steel produced and, as one commentator noted: “Everyone wants clean steel, but nobody wants to pay 20% more for it.” So it looks as if degrees of greenness will be the answer.

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Vietnam's Hoa Phat Group, Southeast Asia's top steelmaker, has opened a factory for air conditioners and other home appliances in an aim to generate $1 billion in annual revenue by 2030. The plant in Vietnam's northern province of Ha Nam will also produce water purifiers and air purifiers, with an annual capacity of 1 million products. The factory in Hoa Mac Industrial Park cost over $41.8 million.

Source: Nikkei Asia, 4 October 2022

ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel (AM/NS) India has received environmental clearance to expand the capacity at its flagship plant in Hazira, Gujarat, from 9Mt/yr to 15 Mt/yr. The clearance from the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change was a result of a stipulated detailed environmental impact assessment. The assessment report was submitted to the Gujarat Pollution Control Board, which held a public consultation in July in Hazira under the chairmanship of the district collector and magistrate of Surat District.

Source: The Hindu Business Line, 6 October 2022

German multinational conglomerate Thyssenkrupp and automotive industry partner Mubea have signed a memorandum of understanding for the supply of low-carbon steel from Thyssenkrupp’s planned direct-reduction plant, starting in 2026. Thyssenkrupp plans to replace blast furnaces at its Duisburg facility with directreduced iron (DRI) modules with a 2.5Mt/yr capacity.

Source: Fastmarkets, 6 October 2022

BHP Group Ltd. is seeking approval from Australia’s government to extend the life of a metallurgical coal mine in Queensland for almost a century, drawing criticism from climate groups. The development application, via a joint venture with Mitsubishi Corp., would ensure the continuation of the Peak Downs Mine ‘for up to approximately 93 years,’ according to a filing published by the Australian government.

Source: Bloomberg News, 6 October 2022

ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih has put a new welding robotmanipulator into operation within its foundry and mechanical plant. The robot performs welding in difficultto-access places. The task of the electric welder is to control and manage the operation of the unit. Due to this, the process and terms of surfacing and welding of rotors were accelerated, the company stated in a press release.

Source: GMK Center, 6 October 2022

Vale, the world's largest producer of iron ore and nickel, has announced that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Germany's SHS Stahl-Holding Saar GmbH & Co. KG to reduce the

output of carbon during the steelmaking process. SHS, a holding and management

company for the steel industry in Germany's Saarland that carries out tasks for steel producers Saarstahl and Dillinger Hütte, will work with Vale on ways to make greater use of the iron-ore miner's green briquette product and its iron-ore pellets to directly reduce carbon emissions.

Source: MarketWatch, 6 October 2022

People living next to the UK's largest opencast coal mine have said they are ‘devastated’ by plans to keep it working. Coal extraction at Ffos-y-Fran in South Wales had been set to stop in September after 15 years, but the owner is now hoping to persuade the local council to let it keep going. Merthyr Ltd said it wanted to continue supplying the steel industry with Welsh coal. The company initially applied for a nine-month extension, but hopes to prepare another planning application for a further three years of coal extraction.

Source: BBC, 7 October 2022

UK projects aiming to use AI to make steelmaking more productive and to use 3D printing at ‘record scale’ are among schemes awarded £13.7m in British government funding. Targeting improvements in the energy efficiency, productivity and sustainability of manufacturing processes, the Sustainable Smart Factory Competition, led by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), will fund projects that harness digital innovations such as AI, ‘big data’ and virtual reality. The 12 projects awarded funding aim to optimise the use of materials, reduce and re-use waste, or lower energy consumption to increase sustainability in production and drive growth.

Source: Institution of Mechanical Engineers, 7 October 2022

JM Steel, a steel processor located in South Carolina, has announced the purchase of Five Star Roll Form, a roll forming company. Five Star Roll Form, a woman-owned business, opened in 2017 with a single roll former. All senior employees and management teams of Five Star Roll Form will remain.

Source: Cision, 8 October 2022

Technology Metals Australia Ltd (TMT) has executed a non-binding memorandum of understanding with Tata Steel, setting the course for vanadium offtake discussions. Together with Tata Steel, TMT will investigate whether there is scope for a downstream technical collaboration, which could lead both parties to jointly develop ferrovanadium production facilities in India and Western Australia.

Source: Proactive, 10 October 2022

UK doctors were left shocked after finding a steel cup inside a patient’s body. The man arrived at the hospital complaining of stomach pains – which medics discovered were being caused by a steel cup. It then took a team of 11 doctors to remove the cup during a risky and complex surgery. The metal cup was blocking the 22-year-old's bowel movements, leaving him in agony.

Source: Hull Live, 10 October 2022

The United Steelworkers union (USW) has announced that 2,000 Cleveland-Cliffs workers at its iron ore mining and pelletizing facilities have ratified a new labour agreement at northern Minnesota and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula plants. USW claims the deal ‘features significant wage and benefit improvements’ and a company ‘commitment to invest in the future of the USW represented facilities.’

Source: World Socialist Web Site, 10 October 2022

A research team from North China's Shanxi Province with an average age of 30 has developed the world's thinnest ‘hand-torn steel’ at 0.02mm after 711 failures in 2018. They rolled the thickness from 0.02mm to 0.015mm, setting a new world record. The steel is only 1/6 the thickness of a human hair.

Source: Global Times, 10 October 2022

JSW Steel, the flagship company of the diversified JSW Group, has announced that it has joined the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) network – the world’s largest voluntary corporate sustainability initiative. JSW Steel is the fifth Indian company in the ‘Industrial Mining and Manufacturing’ category to join the UN Global Compact initiative, the company said in a regulatory filing. JSW Steel is one of thousands of businesses around the world that have joined the network in an effort to 'advance sustainable business practices'. Source: MoneyControl, 11 October 2022

ArcelorMittal México will invest $15 million in its plant in Escobedo, Nuevo Leon. The plant produces pipes for the automotive industry, according to Jaime Luján Valladolid, director of industry and flat steel sales. “The investment will be used for the installation of a fifth pipe mill at the plant and production will be dedicated to serving Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers, which in turn supply companies such as Volkswagen, General Motors and Ford for vehicles such as the Suburban, Tahoe and Fusion,” said Luján Valladolid.

Source: Mexico Now, 11 October 2022

ThyssenKruppSteel Europe (TKSE) and the German producer of household appliances, Miele Group, have signed a memorandum of understanding on the supply of green steel from TKSE's Duisburg. The enterprise, to be launched in 2026, reports the Thyssenkrupp website. ThyssenKrupp will supply its patented Bluemint steel for the home appliance producer. In the following years, the volume of purchases will gradually increase. By 2030, Miele and Thyssenkrupp plan to switch 100% to Bluemint.

Source: GMK Center, 13 October 2022

PT Gunung Raja Paksi

Tbk (GRP), a member of Gunung Steel Group and one of the largest private steelmakers in Indonesia, has announced the launch of its new Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Strategy Handbook, with the set-up of a new sustainability department aimed at addressing rising concerns about climate change and social issues, such as equality and human rights. The ESG Strategy Handbook was developed from GRP’s partnership with multinational consultancy firm, Environmental Resources Management.

Source: Macau Business, 13 October 2022

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau attended a ceremony on 13 October, in celebration of ArcelorMittal Dofasco’s $1.8 billion decarbonization plan. Trudeau stated that the $400 million federal investment announced last July is helping Dofasco become the world’s first major steel producer to move toward a cleaner process of making steel. The federal and provincial governments have each contributed millions toward ArcelorMittal Dofasco’s decarbonization plan, which aims to shut down the steelmaker’s coke ovens and blast furnaces by 2028 and expand the use of electric arc furnace technology.

Source: Global News, 13 October 2022

UK-based metal artist, Luke Perry, has created a steel sculpture of an orangutan for Dudley Zoo. The piece features around 100 steel poles of which 97 are cut to knee-height to represent deforestation. At the heart of the work is a female Bornean orangutan who is clinging on to two of the remaining poles, trying to reach out to her young child. "Steel is a very hard medium, it's often very flat and it's great for structural things – but orangutans are well known for their softness, and for their organic shapes, so the difficulty was to make something which complements that," Perry said.

Source: Express and Star, 14 October 2022

Scotland has in effect banned coal mining by confirming no support will be given to future extraction. While there are no mines in Scotland, a conditional licence has been granted for a site in Cumbria which extends into Dumfries and Galloway. Powers over coal exploitation are reserved to Westminster, but Holyrood's planning role means it can block developments. A consultation was held on Scotland's coal extraction policy position over the summer, and the government said it had now agreed its "preferred policy position is no support for coal extraction in Scotland".

Source: BBC, 15 October 2022

Brazilian steelmaker Gerdau has invested $132m to align its production processes with expected growing demand for electric vehicles. "Our objective when investing in our special steel plants is to increase productivity and meet the needs and growing demand of our customers, under a plan to fully modernize operations by 2025," Rubens Pereira, vice president of Gerdau's specialty steel division in Brazil commented.

Source: BNamericas, 17 October 2022

In an endeavour to make noninvasive early-stage cancer diagnosis an affordable reality, Tata Steel’s new materials business has signed a technology transfer agreement with IIT Roorkee for a breathbased cancer detector. “IIT Roorkee’s team of professors – Professor Indranil Lahiri, Professor Partha Roy, Professor Debrupa Lahiri and researchers along with their groups have developed a simple, easy-to-use breathbased detector (BLO detector) for early detection of cancer," the company has announced.

Source: Mint, 21 October 2022

The trial of a firm accused of safety failures at Port Talbot's Tata steelworks after an employee suffered serious head injuries has been halted halfway through after a judge ruled there was insufficient evidence to convict. Monolithic Refractories Limited was on trial at Swansea Crown Court charged with failing to ensure the health, safety and welfare of its employees in relation to the risks arising from the use of a piece of machinery called a refractory mixer at the works. Source: Wales Online, 20 October 2022

Global chemical company Linde has announced that it has expanded its existing long-term agreement for the supply of industrial gases with Jindal Stainless Limited (JSL), one of the largest stainless-steel producers in India. The additional supply will support the significant expansion of JSL’s facility. The Indian steelmaker's new Air Separation Unit is expected to start up in the first half of 2024 and will be an additional supply source for the local merchant market. Source: yahoo!finance, 21 October 2022

Emirates Steel Arkan (ESA), the UAE's largest steel and building materials manufacturer, has received an exemption from Saudi Arabia on the 15% rules of origin duty, an industry source aware of the details said. “A formal letter was issued by the United Arab Emirates Federal Authority for Identity, Citizenship, Customs & Port Security yesterday (20 October 2022) stating that ESA has been granted a duty exemption for the Saudi market for the sale of steel products,” the industry source stated. Source: Zawya, 21 October 2022

In a village near Mvuma, a small mining town about 192km south of Zimbabwe’s capital Harare, Chinese steel giant Tsingshan Holding Group is building a $1 billion iron and steel plant. It will make use of the abundant iron ore, chrome, coal, nickel and limestone available in Zimbabwe to make iron and steel products and help Zimbabwe develop its steel value chain. The plant, which will be ready by next year, will initially produce 600kt per annum – with capacity to double its output when it is running at full throttle. Source: South China Morning Post, 22 October 2022

Anglo American has said that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Thyssenkrupp Steel Europe AG, a subsidiary of German steel producer thyssenkrupp AG, to focus on decarbonizing steelmaking. "The collaboration will focus on joint research to accelerate the development of high-quality feedstock for lower carbon steel production, using both conventional blast furnace and direct reduction iron steelmaking – the latter being a less carbonintensive method which requires iron ore of a particularly high quality," Anglo American said.

Source: AJ Bell, 20 October 2022

Gerdau Special Steel North America is upgrading its Monroe, Michigan, SBQ line to the tune of $40.4 million, according to a report by Kallanish. The company procured a new bundler table, bundler area, and a third saw. The project has two phases. During the first, in 2023, the new bundler table and area will be installed. The second phase is the installation of the new saw and will be completed in 2024.

Source: Kallanish, 24 October 2022

South Africa’s government has said that it has ‘no reason’ to apply sanctions brought against Russian tycoon Alexey Mordashov, the biggest shareholder in steelmaker Severstal, and that his $500 million mega yacht is free to dock at its ports. Mordashov was sanctioned by the European Union, the UK and US after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The mogul’s 142-metre yacht is expected to arrive in Cape Town in November.

Source: News24, 25 October 2022

ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih is transferring its largest blast furnace no.9 into conservation mode as part of preparations for the winter. Blast furnace no.9 was shut down at the beginning of a full-scale Russian invasion, but work on the unit has continued –with it now being prepared for winter. The main task was to dehydrate all the BF’s conduits, so that during frosts excess moisture would not damage the cooling system. According to Sergiy Myazin, head of blast shop№2, this is the first time this procedure has been carried out on the unit. Source: GMK Center, 25 October 2022

Sustainable technologies provider Metso Outotec is launching a DRI smelting furnace to, it says, substitute blast furnaces used in iron and steel making. The DRI smelting furnace is one of Metso Outotec’s key solutions for decarbonizing the iron and steel industry. Jyrki Makkonen, vice president, smelting at Metso Outotec, said: “The DRI smelting furnace is a true breakthrough technology. It will help the iron and steel industry to reach their CO2 emission reduction targets and limit global warming. The new high-capacity 6-in-line DRI smelting furnace is part of Metso Outotec’s Planet Positive offering, which is focused on environmentally efficient technologies.”

Source: International Mining, 25 October 2022

Six companies within the Metinvest Group, including Azovstal and Ilyich Iron and Steel Works of Mariupol, have filed lawsuits with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) against Russia for the damage caused by the

Russian Federation to the property and ownership of the Group in Mariupol and other territories of Ukraine from 24 February onwards. Metinvest claims that the Russian Federation has violated the rights of the company in accordance with Art. 1 of Protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights, causing significant damage and destruction to assets, and depriving the company of ownership of the assets.

Source: GMK Center, 25 October 2022

POSCO held the second Hydrogen Iron & Steel making Forum in Fotografiska, Stockholm on 12 October. HyIS is a forum where experts from the steel industry,

raw material suppliers, engineering firms, academics, and associations gather to discuss carbon-neutral strategies and sustainable growth in the steelmaking industry based on hydrogen iron. The steelmaker hosted the world's first HyIS forum in Seoul last year, proposing cross-border co-operation and solidarity to speed up the realization of carbon neutrality. This year's HyIS forum was jointly held by POSCO and Swedish steelmaker SSAB. Source: The Korea Times, 27 October 2022

A 72-foot steel gun built in Oxford has been dubbed ‘the Big Friendly Gun’ by inventors who think they’re close to cracking nuclear fusion. Scientists at First Light Fusion are using over six pounds of gunpower to fire a high-velocity piston to enter a cone segment that crushes gas, causing it to shoot from a metal seal. A projectile then hits a nuclear fusion target and temporarily produces conditions that allow the nuclei to fuse. CEO Nick Hawker told reporters that he hopes the First Light Fusion reactor will be generating usable electricity by the 2030s, with power on the grid in the following decade. Source: The Daily Star, 28 October 2022

Sumangala Steel Private Limited, a steel producer based in Southern India, is in the process of setting up a modern scrap shredder and thermo mechanical treatment finishing infrastructure to make blue steel at its plant in Puducherry, said a senior official. “The modern scrap shredder will be imported to process end-of-life vehicles, white goods and light scrap. It will become operational by 23 December,” Ashwin Sabanayagam, president and director told reporters. According to Sabanayagam, it will be the first scrap shredder facility in Puducherry.

Source: The Hindu, 29 October 2022

Local steel fabrication company S FABS Southern fabrication presented £2,125 to the Selsey, UK branch of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, a charity which provides a 24-hour search and rescue service around the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland coasts. The money was raised from a charity raffle organised to coincide with a function that was held on 14 September where the draw took place.

Source: RNLI.org, 30 October 2022

Tata Steel's future course of action with respect to its UK business will be based on the British government's response to the company's proposal seeking financial support to sustain the business there, CEO T V Narendran has announced. Tata Steel owns the UK's largest steelworks at Port Talbot in South Wales and employs around 8,000 people across all its operations in the country. The company is seeking £1.5 billion from the UK government to execute its decarbonization plans.

Source: Moneycontrol, 31 October 2022

Condolences from across India have poured in following the death of the 'Steel Man of India', J.J. Irani, who passed away at the age of 86 in Jamshedpur. Irani had retired from the board of Tata Steel in June 2011, leaving behind a legacy of 43 years, which won him and the company international acclaim in various fields. He became joint managing director of Tata Steel in 1988, and managing director in 1992. Irani was the recipient of multiple honours and awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, bestowed by the Government of India in 2008 in acknowledgement of his services in the area of metallurgy. Source: NDTV, 1 November 2022

‘Meals to make Steel!’ a short film to document a personal recollection of working in what was one of the UK’s largest industrial catering operations has been published by the Wales National Archive, Peoples Collection. Produced by volunteer and heritage community filmmaker, John Butler, it features the voice of veteran industrial caterer, Kath Tellett who, at 21 commenced her long career at John Summers steelworks in Shotton, Wales. Kath’s story tells of restaurants, canteens and mobile catering vans which, every-day, prepared and delivered a variety of on-site meals to suit the needs and appetites of thousands of hungry steelworkers.

Source: Deeside.com, 2 November 2022

China’s iron and steel association has said that it will accelerate efforts to promote mergers and acquisitions (M&As) to increase the industry’s concentration and profits amid challenges such as an increasingly complex international landscape, domestic COVID-19 resurgences and soaring raw material prices. The association said that it will closely follow market trends to help steel companies reduce costs while increasing profits. It said that it will strengthen co-operation among steel firms and varied levels of government, try to establish a new mechanism of steel production capacity management that accommodates the new environment, and optimize the policy environment to greatly boost industry M&As.

Source: Hellenic Shipping News, 1 October 2022

civic body that governs the city of Chandigarh, the capital of Punjab and Haryana, India, will be installing 3,300 new stainless steel twin dustbins in the city’s green belts and parks. Mayor Sarbjit Kaur started the bins’ installation work at the central park in Manimajra in the presence of municipal commissioner Anindita Mitra.

Source: The Hindustan Times, 2 November 2022

Working towards 100% segregation of waste at source, the Chandigarh municipal corporation, the

Britain has sanctioned four Russian steel and petrochemical business owners, including the former head of steel producer Evraz, the government said on 2 November, its latest measures taken against Moscow over the war in Ukraine. Those sanctioned include Alexander Abramov and Alexander Frolov, who Britain described as known associates of oligarch Roman Abramovich, himself sanctioned earlier this year. "We are sanctioning an additional four oligarchs who rely on Putin for their positions of authority and in turn fund his military machine," UK foreign secretary James Cleverly commented. The sanctions implemented include travel bans, asset freezes and transport sanctions, the foreign office said.

Source: Reuters, 2 November 2022

The American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) has released recommended steel industry greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions calculation guidelines to provide data across the industry on GHG emissions from steel production, with a focus on product-level disclosures and corporate-level reporting. The proposed guidelines are the result of monthslong collaboration with key American steel producers and Institute staff. The institute added that the recommendations are not intended to be a formal industry standard, but a means to inform efforts underway by American and international steel producers and others working to develop GHG emissions calculation methodologies.

Source: Green Car Congress, 4 November 2022

Europe's largest steelmaker, ArcelorMittal, will idle blast furnace 2 at its Fos-sur-Mer site in France from December. The 2Mt/yr unit will be idled in response to low demand and high import levels. There are two furnaces at the Fos plant, 1 and 2, both with the same capacity. ArcelorMittal announced a spate of idlings in recent months, citing energy costs, imports and low demand and prices as the main drivers.

Source: Argus Media, 4 November 2022

China's steel production has continued to show a modest decline despite steelmakers facing poor profit margins, on the back of new pig iron and crude steel capacity launched in recent months, while a lack of any large-scale output cuts is failing to add pressure on production, says a report by S&P Global. Northern China, home to large steelmakers, could see winter output cuts from mid-November, especially in the Hebei steel hub, market sources said, adding that despite this, curbs are expected to remain smaller than the previous year. Source: S&P Global, 4 November 2022

McNeilus Truck and Manufacturing Inc., an Oshkosh Corp. company, has announced a partnership with Swedish steel manufacturer SSAB, in fossil fuel-free steel

applications for severe-duty commercial vehicles. The first use of this fossil fuel-free steel will be to prototype advanced, environmentally sustainable McNeilus refuse collection vehicles. Oshkosh Corp. and McNeilus, Dodge Centre, Minnesota, are working on research and development initiatives across multiple commercial vehicle product lines.

Source: Recycling Today, 5 November 2022

US Steel is investing $150 million at its Keewatin plant to produce a higher-grade iron ore pellet that would serve electric furnaces. ‘’As mini mills make higher quality steel, they require highquality iron to supplement scrap metal. That's where the new pellets come in,’’ said Kevin Kangas, director of the Natural Resources Research Institute in Coleraine, part of the University of Minnesota Duluth. "This is a great step forward for the Minnesota iron ore industry." Source: Star Tribune, 5 November 2022

UK business secretary Grant Shapps will hold talks with the steelmaker, Jingye Group, owner of British Steel, amid dwindling hopes that a government aid package will prevent thousands of job losses. One source said that British Steel had begun placing orders for equipment that would be required in order to permanently close one of Scunthorpe's blast furnaces. Such a move would entail as many as 2,000 redundancies, the source added, in what would be a further blow to Britain's industrial manufacturing capability.

Source: Sky News, 6 November 2022

Konecranes receives order for eight forklifts

Kemi Shipping Oy, owned by Finnish Metsä Group, has ordered eight award-winning Konecranes E-VER fully electric forklifts, including full-service contracts for their operations in the Port of Kemi. The order was received in June 2022 and will be delivered in the first half of 2023.

Kemi Shipping provides a range of harbour services for customers in the region. With Metsä opening a new mill for bioproducts in the north, Kemi Shipping is taking the step to invest in new lift trucks for its warehouse operations. The port facility has ordered eight Konecranes E-VER electric forklifts that will serve the mill with its product handling as it reaches full production capacity.

“Sustainability is at the core of our business, so the first thing that attracted us to the Kone cranes E-VER was the fact that it is fully electric,” said Kari Lundell, CEO of Kemi Shipping. “We

had one Konecranes E-VER delivered earlier this year for paper board handling, and we could see its advantages immediately. Besides eliminating tailpipe emissions, it offers outstanding efficiency, and our drivers love it. Once all eight E-VER elec tric forklifts are on-site, they will mark another big step on our journey to greater productivity and lower emissions.”

“Kemi Shipping has been a loyal Konecranes customer for over two decades, sharing our mu tual commitment to the environment” comment ed Klaus Kaukovalta, product manager, lift trucks for Konecranes Finland. “Konecranes E-VER, which won the sawmill industry Product Novelty Competition for improving the environmental performance, gives us the perfect opportunity to provide Kemi Shipping equipment that meets their specific requirements in a demanding industry.”

The eight additional lift trucks are Konecranes

E-VER 16-1200C forklifts, with a fully-electric driveline and a capacity of 16 tons. Lithium-ion batteries manufactured with clean energy power each truck, taking 45 minutes to fully recharge and re-generating brake energy back to its bat tery. With less heat, oil and fewer moving parts, the electric forklift requires less maintenance, says Konecranes, and produces less chemical waste. The trucks will be supplied with special bale clamps to securely handle wood pulp.

Konecranes E-VER electric forklifts are also Smart Connected Lift Trucks, in which TRUCON NECT® Remote Monitoring follows each truck’s performance and maximizes battery life through analytics such as charge optimization and energy consumption.

For further information, log on to www.konecranes.com

Ward welcomes York scrap merchant into the family

Midlands-based metal recycling and waste management specialist, Ward, has welcomed York scrap merchant, L. Clancey & Sons into its extended family with the acquisition of its metal processing business in York.

Ward, an independent, fourth generation family-run business, has completed a deal with L. Clancey & Sons for its 3.9-acre scrap metal site in York and the business as a going concern. The acquisition of the business will further enhance the nationwide capabilities of Ward, offering greater coverage in the North of England, while enabling the succession planning of Clancey’s, as two of its partners take retirement.

Clancey’s has a well-established reputation, developed over its 160-year history and this successful operating model will be maintained, as will the business name. One of the sellers, Richard Clancey, a member of the founding family, will

stay on as site operations manager, employed by Ward and all other staff are being retained.

Thomas Ward, commercial director at Ward, said: “This is a really exciting time for both our family businesses. Clancey’s have a solid repu tation in metal recycling, they share our values, outlook and approach to customers. We hope they will become an extension of the Ward team operationally, while retaining their own identity.

‘‘This new site gives us even more geographical reach for both businesses with good transport links to our Midlands, Immingham and Redcar sites.”

Richard Clancey, partner, at L. Clancey & Sons, said: “Both our businesses are strongly family orientated and we have very similar values, from the way we look after our teams to the way we support our customers. This will be a really posi tive step for us all. Both myself and my daughter

are looking forward to working with Ward and seeing what we can achieve together.”

For further information, log on to www.ward.com

A new LD converter (BOF) implemented by Primetals Technologies was started up at Arce lorMittal Belgium’s steel plant in Gent, Belgium. To meet the demands on pre-assembly works, the Austrian production technology specialist came up with several ideas.

ArcelorMittal Belgium wanted most of the pre-assembly works to be done at the manu facturing site in Poland as a way of avoiding possible delays. The vessel and trunnion ring had been assembled as one unit in Poland, rendering the result too big to pass underneath an existing pipe bridge at the steel plant in Gent. Therefore, using a 1kt crane, Primetals Technologies lifted the vessel and trunnion ring – weighing around 380 tons altogether – over the 10-metre-high pipe bridge.

Thanks to good planning and preparation, Primetals met the customer’s tight 35-day timeline without any interruption in the ongoing production at LD converter No. 3 during the shutdown. Primetals Technologies made key preparations during a pre-shutdown in June 2021 to ensure that everything would be running smoothly during the revamp.

“From the start of our project until com missioning we experienced a very professional collaboration with the project team of Primetals

Technologies,” commented Glenn Gosseye, pro ject manager at ArcelorMittal Belgium.

“Although it was performed in a very challeng ing environment, we managed to stay within our target of a 35-day shutdown,” said Hannes Seys, project engineer at ArcelorMittal Belgium.

The LD converter supplied to ArcelorMittal Belgium by Primetals Technologies features an optimized converter shape. This, it is claimed, will further increase both the yield and energy efficiency of the steelmaking process. Another important feature is the Vaicon Link 2.0 – a sus pension system that keeps the vessel stable in all directions and still allows for thermal expansion. According to Primetals Technologies, it ensures ideal conditions during the whole lifetime of the converter. Primetals Technologies developed this system more than 20 years ago and has continu ously refined it.

Average LD converter heat sizes are around 180 tons, hence a heat size of 330 tons makes this LD converter one of the world’s largest. In to tal, Primetals Technologies supplied ArcelorMittal Belgium with 1kt of equipment while installing the LD converter in Gent.

For further information, log on to www.primetals.com

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NSK releases long-life bearings NSK releases long-life bearings

NSK, a Japanese bearings manufacturer, has developed a new bearing for the steelmaking industry that aims to improve productivity through stable equipment operation and reduce maintenance costs with its sealing and lubrica tion technologies.

NSK set about developing a solution which utilises sealing technology optimised for rolling mill bearings, alongside grease technology that minimises the effects of water intrusion. The outcome is a long-life, four-row tapered roller bearing that claims to be both more water-re sistant than conventional bearings, and able to deliver optimal performance in steelmaking

equipment applications.

The oil seal on the new bearing is compact, while a new processing method for the cage has increased roller length and diameter, and increased the number of rollers, resulting in a high load capacity design.

According to NSK, optimising the internal design of the new bearing increases the basic dynamic load rating by up to 25% compared with its conventional product. Furthermore, tight sealing not only suppresses the ingress of particulates and water to extend service life, it also reduces the need for grease replenishment during maintenance periods.

Available in sizes from 345 to 615.95 mm (outer diameter), NSK’s new sealed-clean, fourrow tapered roller bearings with water-resistant grease are suitable for work rolls in hot/cold rolling mills and other steelmaking equipment. Moving forward, the company will continue its development programme in support of steel makers, creating products that contribute to both process advancement and environmental preservation.

For further information, log on to www.nsk.com

FH Warden releases light truck range

A Birmingham, UK-based steel stockholder has become one of the first customers in Britain for a vehicle from the latest FUSO Canter light truck range.

FH Warden (Steel)’s new 7.5-tonner features a redesigned cab with eye-catching ‘face’, as well as improvements over the outgoing model in comfort and safety.

FH Warden’s truck is powered by a 3.0-litre common-rail turbodiesel that produces 110 kW (150 hp), and is paired with a DUONIC dual-clutch automated manual transmission. Its 23ft platform body is by Fred Smith & Sons, of West Bromwich.

Director Dave Hughes is well placed to ap preciate the advances that FUSO has made with its new range – this is the third Canter that his company has purchased from Midlands Truck & Van since it resolved in 2013 to dispense with third-party contractors and bring its local trans port function ‘in-house’.

Key to the Canter’s appeal for FH Warden, is the industry-leading carrying capacity that aims to ensure high productivity. “It’s all about payload,” explained Dave Hughes, director of FH Warden. “We can get nearly 4.0 tonnes on the back of this truck. That’s the best part of a full tonne more than you’d achieve with a conven tional 7.5-tonner.”

FH Warden was established in 1850 by Francis Hollins Warden. It was subject to a management buyout in 1995 by Mr Hughes’ parents, Dave Sr and Pat. They remain the sole owners of the business.

For further information, log on to www.fhwarden.co.uk

Fives awarded contract for inspection line

Nucor Corporation, the largest steel producer in the United States, awarded Fives a contract for a recoiling and inspection line to support automo tive applications at the new Nucor steel plant in West Virginia.

This contract comes in addition to the two gal vanizing lines already won by Fives for this same greenfield facility.

With a total investment of about $2.7 billion, Nucor is building a new steel mill for sheet metal

production on the Ohio River which is to start operations in the second half of 2024.

The recoiling and inspection line includes Fives’ digital solution EyeronTM, an intelligent quality management system that collects upstream process data, checks consistency with quality rules and automatically assesses product quality grading. EyeronTM will be tracking quality on the vertical galvanizing line and the recoiling and inspection line to ensure the products meet the

automotive quality standards.

“We choose Fives to supply an inspection line as an extension of our galvanizing line N1 using their automotive expertise supported with a real-time quality system,” said John Farris, vice president and general manager of Nucor Steel West Virginia.

For further information, log on to www.fives.com

SIJ Acroni contracts Primetals for cycloconverter

Slovenian steel producer SIJ Acroni, which is part of SIJ Group, tasked Primetals Technologies with the replacement of the existing cycloconverter drive control for the upper and lower motors on the plate mill’s roughing stand at the Jesenice production site in Slovenia. Rendering the old drives obsolete, Primetals Technologies installed the VarioVerter cycloconverter solution.

The project aimed to increase availability and secure the supply of spare parts for the drives. Two main factors played a role when SIJ Acroni

chose Primetals Technologies as supplier: a variable replacement concept and competitive investment costs.

Primetals Technologies’ scope of supply includ ed implementing two VarioVerter cycloconverter controllers, replacing the field control units, and providing a new workstation for easy and remote maintenance and diagnosis of the drive system. The integration into the plate mill’s existing basic automation control system was re-established, leaving the interface largely unchanged.

Installation and start-up were completed on schedule. After a short start-up period, the VarioVerter was adjusted to handle all products and yield strengths without restrictions. Addi tional technological functions, like ski control, were included in the control of the VarioVerter cycloconverter.

For further information, log on to www.primetals.com

Tough times ahead

Though the steel industry’s mood, by and large, has been characterized by optimism based on bullish market signs, there are also some indicators that are causing unease in the US market, says Manik Mehta*, one of which is the soaring inflation rate leading some experts to utter the dreaded ‘R’ word –recession.

PUNDITS have been talking for some time about the dark clouds gathering in the skies. According to Fitch Ratings, a mild US recession in 2023 and overall weak demand and pricing could create some challenges for the steel sector. But urbanization, mobility, and automobile electrification are trends that will support long-term steel demand, while federal stimulus, trade regulations and the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act should provide near to mediumterm support. The pandemic and the Russia/Ukraine conflict emphasized the importance of reshoring manufacturing and infrastructure investments, which also supports medium-term demand.

Fitch expects healthy single-digit percentage increases in private nonresidential investment spending to support construction demand; however, nonresidential construction starts to point to decelerating activity. Moreover, rising interest rates, lingering supply chain constraints and a US recession in 2023 may affect the timing and magnitude of construction spending. Labour shortages and supply chain disruptions also delayed construction activity during 2021 and 2022. However, Fitch expects public construction spending will start to see the benefits of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, including $110 billion of incremental funding for roads and bridges.

US auto steel demand will remain under pressure through the first half of 2023, but could improve thereafter as supply chain issues, including component shortages for semiconductors, abate. Fitch expects vehicle production to marginally increase in 2023 and 2024, as improved semiconductor availability allows large-volume auto manufacturers to increase production. However, this assumes that healthy consumer balance sheets and spending, in addition to pent up auto demand, are enough to offset inflationary pressures on the consumer, including rising interest rates.

Like Fitch, others see a sharp fall-off in demand resulting in a downturn scenario, together with a period of sustained low prices. China is expected to increase exports as its domestic steel demand softens, keeping in check the galloping prices worldwide. The strong US dollar could also impact domestic steel prices if it results in steel imports becoming more attractive.

Overall, US steel companies seem to be bullish for 2023, as recent comments by leading steel executives during company earnings calls suggest. This bullish mood is based on a number of ‘positive signs, such as the pent-up demand for automobiles’, as senior executives of major steel companies have been suggesting, including US Steel, Nucor, Steel Dynamics Inc., and Cleveland Cliffs. Supply chain bottlenecks will

also ease in 2023, fuelling demand and supporting cash flows.

Indeed, Lourenco Goncalves, chairman, president and CEO of Cleveland Cliffs, said that the automotive sector could now ‘carry the market’ when speaking during a recent company earnings call, referring to ‘clear evidence that fleet inventories need to be replenished’, and the ‘unique opportunity’ available for the automotive industry in 2023 backed by microchips, may be the only sector with pent-up demand.

Similar views were also expressed by David Burritt, the chief executive of US Steel, who during a conference call on 28 October maintained that automotive customers were ‘already signaling higher steel consumption in 2023’. Burritt also saw demand being generated in the energy and appliance end markets.

Leon Topalian, Nucor’s president and CEO, was equally optimistic in a conference earnings call on 20 October about the automotive industry, while identifying the non-residential construction and energy sectors as two other drivers of demand for steel.

The steel industry has, meanwhile, cushioned itself against market volatility by entering into fixed price contracts to maintain price stability in 2023. These would cushion the industry, at least, for a year against ‘rising upward trends in prices of all materials’, as one steel industry

manager put it, preferring to remain anonymous.

Indeed, as Burritt has been saying, the fixed and longer-term contracts ‘take some of the noise out of market price fluctuations’.

The steel industry’s confidence is also strengthened by Washington’s investment plans following the passage of the CHIPS Act and the Inflation Reduction Act in Congress. These initiatives are expected to boost domestic manufacturing, and open up opportunities for the nation’s steel industry, with Topalian anticipating the impact of new federal infrastructure spending in 2023 as states continue to move forward with their projects. Senior executives of the big steel companies are expecting the infrastructure programme to start to drive steel demand in 2023 and even beyond.

On another front, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai met recently, for the second time in a matter of weeks, with the European Commission’s executive vice president Valdis Dombrovsky, to discuss, among other things, the issue of carbon intensity and overcapacity in the steel and aluminium sectors. The USTR reinforced the USA’s commitment to pursue ‘a high ambition global arrangement with the European Union to address these issues’, according to a statement released by the USTR’s office.

While both sides have not released details about their talks, Kevin Dempsey, the president and CEO of the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), has been saying that while efforts were made in the

past to address the issue of global steel overcapacities, no concrete action had been taken and the issue of overcapacities persisted. Though he supported the Biden administration’s efforts to address these important issues, Dempsey said that “it’s very important that we actually reach a result that will create effective enforceable mechanisms that discourage the importing of steel that’s much higher in carbon intensity, and that actually put some type of penalty on countries that are exacerbating the global overcapacity crisis”.

options in the event of a Union Pacific railway strike taking place in the critical winter season. Such a strike could impact the industry’s shipments. The steel industry’s vulnerability becomes obvious when one considers that roughly a third of all US exports are facilitated by rail transport. In particular, there is a dense concentration of steel mills in Illinois, Eastern Texas, and the Pacific Northwest that utilize Union Pacific railways.

Indeed, not just metal but also other products and commodities – such as food, timber and coal – are transported across the country along the nearly 140,000 miles of cargo-transportation routes. It may be recalled that in September two of the 12 major US railway unions had rejected negotiations and revived the possibility of a strike in winter.

The AISI also recently released the recommended steel industry greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) calculation guidelines to provide consistent and comprehensive data across the industry on GHG emissions from steel production, with a focus on product level disclosures and corporate level reporting. The AISI said that the guidelines were the ‘result of months-long collaboration with key American steel producers and institute staff’.

As of writing this update, the steel industry was quietly looking for transport

More than 50% of freight moved across the US consists of bulk commodities, with coal, iron ore, and steel scrap material being the three large categories of goods moved across the nation. The categories include coking coal used for steel production. In 2021, US railroad freight routes transported more than 560kt of steel and raw materials across the country. These are then finished into products like pig iron, steel wire, and steel plates.

Indeed, steel mills in the country rely heavily on rail transportation of these goods. The winter, as many predict, will not be an easy one, given rising energy prices. A strike at such a critical time will not only hit a sensitive nerve of the steel industry, but also have repercussions for the nation’s economy. �

CONTACT US: www.solarturbines.com, +41 91 851 1511 (Europe) or +1 619 544 5352 (US) infocorp@solarturbines.com

COSAN – a new Vale shareholder

In October 2022, the capital market and the iron and steel industry were surprised by the fact that the Brazilian conglomerate Cosan announced the acquisition of a relevant stake in Vale, writes Germano Mendes de Paula*

Vale plays a crucial role in the global iron ore industry. With a production of 316Mt in 2021, the company occupied second place in the world ranking, just after Rio Tinto (322Mt). Vale achieved a worldwide market share of 13.5%. The respective ratio for Latin America and Brazil was 73.8% and 80.8%. Last year, Vale exported 278Mt of iron ore, equivalent to a 16.8% share of global exports. Vale’s exports as a proportion of Latin American exports was 74.2% and, as a proportion of Brazilian exports, 81.1%.

Vale’s ownership history

Vale was incorporated in 1942 as a stateowned enterprise (SOE). It was privatised in 1997, when two consortia disputed its majority control: one headed by Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN) and the other by Votorantim, a large Brazilian conglomerate. The first, which was formed by CSN, pension funds and banks, won the auction. By adopting this particular method of

privatisations, the governmental aim was to assure a stable group of large investors and thereby avoiding the possibility of a hostile take-over. It is important to stress that Vale, for its part, owned a 10.3% stake in CSN as the latter was privatised in 1992.

Nonetheless, in 2001, the crossownership between Vale and CSN was dismantled. A new shareholders’ agreement was signed and renewed afterwards, which guaranteed control by a relatively stable group of large investors, such as the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES), pension funds, financial institutions, and Mitsui. However, two important changes were observed in the last five years. In December 2017, all preferential shares without voting shares were converted into common shares with voting rights. In November 2020, Vale’s shareholding agreement expired, turning it into a corporation (a company without defined shareholding control).

As of September 2022, Vale’s stakes were

controlled by Previ (the largest Brazilian pension fund, with 8.6%), Capital World Investors (a US investment firm, with 6.7%), Blackrock (a US investment firm, with 6.3%) and Mitsui (a Japanese conglomerate, with 6%). The remaining shares were pulverised by investors with lower than a 5% stake (67.5%) and maintained by the company’s treasury (4.9%).

Who is COSAN?

In 1936, Cosan started life as a sugar producer. In 2008, it acquired ExxonMobil’s assets in Brazil and entered the fuel and lubricant distribution sector. In the same year, it established Rumo, a railway, in order to improve the logistics efficiency of Cosan’s sugar exports, and Radar, a company engaged in identifying rural properties with high potential for agricultural operations and price appreciation. In 2011, Raízen was established as a joint-venture between Cosan and Shell to produce sugar and ethanol from sugarcane, and fuel

* Professor in Economics, Federal University of Uberlândia, Brazil. E-mail: germano@ufu.br

distribution. In 2012, it purchased Comgás, a leading natural gas distributor, in order to foster its presence in the energy sector. In 2014, Rumo merged with ALL, another railway company. Cosan Lubricants was renamed as Moove in 2016. In 2008, Cosan engaged in an intense strategy of diversification, acquired some competitors, and gained market share in many segments.

Currently, Cosan’s main assets are a 44% stake in Raízen and a 30% stake in Rumo, both listed enterprises. Moreover, it controls 70% of Moove (non-listed) and 88% of Compass (non-listed, but Compass’ main asset is Comgás, listed with a limited free float). COSAN usually has a relatively large participation in the invested companies, exercising a prominent managerial role. In the day before Vale’s transaction announcement, Cosan’s market capitalisation reached $6.7bn.

Cosan has previously manifested interest in investing in the mining industry. It tried to acquire Previ’s stake in Vale in 2018, but negotiations terminated after the Brumadinho incident. In September 2021, it purchased a port in São Luís, in the State of Maranhão, which belonged to the Chinese CCCC, for a consideration of $136M, and announced a joint-venture for iron ore exploration in the State of Pará with Paulo Brito, a controlling shareholder of Aura Minerals (a gold and copper mining company). The JV is for a relatively small 10Mt/yr greenfield iron ore project, to be commissioned by 2025, and contingent on ongoing technical studies.

Complex

structure and goals

Cosan announced its intention to purchase a 6.5% stake in Vale, becoming one of the latter’s top five shareholders. The

transaction was divided into three tranches: a) the purchase of 1.5% of Vale’s common shares; b) a bridging loan to acquire 3.4% of Vale’s common shares and also derivatives that protect against any share price downside; c) another derivative operation that grants Cosan the right to acquire 1.6% of Vale within five years, which can be converted into voting shares in the future, pending antitrust authority CADE’s approval.

All three parts would be funded by two collar structures, which is an option strategy that limits the range of underlying or specific positive or negative returns. The value of the transaction, assuming Cosan eventually converts all derivatives in Vale’s shares, could reach $4.2bn or roughly 63% of Cosan’s pre-deal announcement market capitalisation. These collars will be somewhat guaranteed by the dividends that Cosan would receive from Raízen and

partnership with several players, such as Shell (partner in Raízen) and the private equity fund CVC (partner in Moove).

The outcomes so far Vale has not been impacted by the transaction yet, because it has not concluded. In addition, it is understood that Cosan may influence more directly Vale’s strategy if it obtains a position on Vale’s board of directors. According to an Itaú BBA report, during a Q3 2022 conference call: “Vale’s management said that it considers Cosan’s investment in Vale as a testimony to the company’s potential to unlock value in the future and to the significant de-risking after the Brumadinho crisis that has been achieved. Vale welcomes the potential contributions that Cosan could make to its strategic planning, considering Cosan’s strong track record for value-creation”. Nonetheless, mostly because of the Chinese iron ore market weakness, Vale’s share prices dropped 10.3% from the day before the transaction announcement until the conclusion of this article.

Compass, plus the Vale shares that Cosan is now acquiring and will purchase over the next five years.

Cosan justified the transaction by five main motivations: a) Vale has a great competitive advantage in the iron ore business, owning unique and irreplicable assets; b) it is a relevant player in energy transition and decarbonization; c) it has large exposure to strong currencies; d) it represents an investment opportunity that increases Cosan’s portfolio diversification and the deal takes place at a time when Vale’s share is undervalued; e) with a significant minority stake, Cosan intends to contribute to value creation with current shareholders and the company’s management. Cosan highlighted that it was not a hostile transaction, as it talked previously with key shareholders, and has demonstrated its ability to work in

It is worth noting that after the transaction, Moody’s reaffirmed Cosan’s rating and maintained its outlook as stable. However, the reaction of capital markets was mixed. Its share prices plummeted 15.6% in the days before the announcement. Even after a partial recovery, its current level is 10.4% lower than the pre-deal notification. In other words, Cosan’s market capitalisation diminished approximately $756M during the post-deal period. As BTG Pactual bank clearly explained, for Cosan, the transaction can be summarised as follows: “Dreaming (really) big; putting its splendid track record to test”. �

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Consumption drives growth

A boost in construction projects, government support, and the rebound of real estate has enabled India’s steel industry to grow, despite a gloomy global outlook.

By Dilip Kumar Jha*

THE government’s thrust towards infrastructure projects, pick-up in construction and real estate activities as well as healthy demand from the automobile sector bodes well for the growth of the steel industry in India. Despite subdued global economic growth forecasts and a slowdown in Indian GDP, the steel industry performed well during the first seven months of the current financial year (April 2022 – March 2023). This indicates that the government’s attempt to support consumption-led industries by enabling favourable policies for the infrastructureconnected other sectors, enabled a robust growth in Indian steel demand this year.

April-October production

According to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), one of the leading industry think tanks in India, the country’s steel demand jumped by 12% to 66Mt during the period between April and October 2022, compared to 59Mt reported in the corresponding period last year. India’s steel consumption stood at 106Mt in the financial year (FY) 2022, an increase of 11.6% from the low base of 95Mt in the previous year, thanks to a number of varied new infrastructure projects announced by the government, as well as the resumption of real estate and construction work.

During the same period, the production

OUTBOUND SPIRAL

India’s steel shipment trend (Mts)

Financial year (April-March) Imports Exports

2020 6.8 8.4 2021 4.8 10.8 2022 4.7 13.5

Apr-Oct 2021 2.8 8.8 Apr-Oct 2022 3.2 4.0

Source: Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE)

ROBUST DEMAND

India’s steel consumption trend (Mts) Financial year (April-March)

Consumption Growth (%)

2020 100 1.5 2021 95 (-)5 2022 106 11.6

Apr-Oct 2021 59 28 Apr-Oct 2022 66 12

Source: Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE)

of crude and finished steel also increased by 5.3% and 6.4% respectively on a yearon-year basis. The growth in finished steel production was supported by a strong increase in consumption.

The government’s focus on infrastructure projects is a major contributor to the rise in demand in the Indian market. However, demand in the international market is expected to remain subdued going forward due to weak external environments such as high inflation, rising interest rates, soaring energy prices in Europe and the

deceleration of the real estate market in China.

An increase in demand from the construction sector, along with an uptick in the real estate and automobile sector, is expected to boost demand for steel products. With robust government spending on roads, railways, airports, ports, mass transport, waterways and logistics infrastructure, a 36% year-on-year increase in capex allocation and government initiatives to support steel production will continue to augment domestic steel demand in the country. With this, India’s

steel production is expected to remain in the range of 115118Mt, a growth rate of around 3-5% in the financial year 2023. The strong domestic demand outlook is likely to benefit manufacturers in the industry.

Record export and duty imposition

The imposition of export duty has led to a de-growth in exports from India in April-October 2022, thereby resulting in increased supply and moderation in steel prices in the domestic market.

India exported a record high of 13.5Mt of steel in the financial year 2021-22, due to international factors like environmental concerns surrounding China’s steel industry, an uptrend in global steel prices, and higher demand from European nations. India’s import of steel has, however, decreased by a staggering 31% to 4.7Mt in the financial year 2021-22 from 6.8Mt in the previous year, backed by higher capacity utilisations as well as on-streaming of large capacities that were acquired by incumbents through bankruptcy proceedings.

India’s steel exports, however, witnessed a reversal in trend during the period April-October 2022, after maintaining an uptrend for three consecutive years ending in March 2022.

India’s steel exports declined sharply by 55% as compared to the same period in the previous year. This was mainly because of weak international demand, continued geopolitical tension and inflationary headwinds globally. Furthermore, the 15% export duty imposed by the Indian government on steel products also affected exports from India.

Consequently, India’s steel exports plunged to 4Mt over the period April-October 2022 from over 8.8Mt during the same period the previous year. This was primarily due to the imposition of export duty on a range of finished steel products. While the exports were less attractive, they increased steel’s domestic availability as reflected in the expansion of production and consumption volumes. On account of an abundance of availability, steel prices in India declined by a fourth from INR 96,079 per tonne in April to INR 73,158 per tonne by the end of October 2022.

The path ahead

India’s overall steel demand growth is expected to remain strong at 9-10% during the current financial year (April 2022-March 2023) due to the government’s infrastructure push and increased investment in real estate and construction sectors amid a post-Covid economic rebound. Additionally, lower raw material prices on account of the increase in export duty on iron ore from 30% to 50% in May 2022, will support steel production in India, although steel prices will continue to remain moderate. Thus the operating profit margins of Indian steel players are likely to remain under pressure because of moderation in realizations despite relatively lower raw material costs and a contraction in realization. Similarly, India’s steel exports may witness a de-growth in the current financial year due to the global economic recession.

In a major relief to Indian steel producers, however, domestic consumption will continue to grow, primarily because of improved economic activity and the government’s continued investment in infrastructure and construction. To serve growing domestic demand, local steel production will grow mainlybecause of sustained high-capacity utilisation levels. �

Improved calcium injection

Minex has improved the injection of calcium to modify inclusions in steel by developing high density packed wire containing either a core of Ca-Si alloy or, when the steel Si specification must be low, pure calcium, as the core of laser welded wire. This approach delays the release of calcium until immersed deep in the steel ladle, improving average Ca yield from 17% to 25% for pure Ca injection and to 20% for CaSi, as well as reducing surface emissions of CaO and thereby improving the working environment.

AMONG all the processes in secondary metallurgy, calcium treatment is certainly the most difficult due to its low density, low melting and boiling temperatures as well as its high vapour pressure. A failure in calcium treatment may have catastrophic consequences. These problems have led to the development of special addition techniques injecting steel wire with calcium in its core into molten steel in the ladle.

Minex Metallurgical Company Ltd, started its journey almost four decades ago pioneering cored wire injection systems as well as cored wire manufacturing technology. The company has launched its first ‘Green CaSi’ injection cored wire for the steel and foundry industries, manufactured in Brazil partly using renewable energy. It has also introduced Accurate Density Control (ADC) using a PLC-based weighing system to measure and control the density of the core material which ultimately improves the quality of the wire in terms of stable density. This article examines recent results.

Calcium treatment of liquid steel has become an important means and essential feature of deoxidation, desulphurisation and inclusion modification[1] of steel. The use of calcium controls the shape, size and distribution of oxide and sulphide inclusions[2,3]. In Al-killed steels, alumina inclusions form and are the main inclusions. At steelmaking temperatures, these alumina inclusions are mainly present in solid form. The mechanical properties of steel is affected by the volume fraction, size, distribution, composition and morphology of these inclusions. In addition to lowering the properties of the steel, solid inclusions affect steel castability by nozzle clogging. Nozzle clogging occurs when solid inclusions accumulate in the

Fig1. CaO-Al2O3 binary phase diagram

Atomic Weight 40.08

Density 1.55 g/cm3 (at room temp.)

Melting Point 842°C /1115K

Boiling Point 1483°C /1757K

Vapour pressure at 1550°C 1.05 Atm Vapour pressure at 1600°C 1.81 Atm

Table 1 Physical properties of Calcium

caster pouring system such as in the ladle shroud or submerged entry nozzle (SEN). Thus it is important to understand

how to achieve acceptable inclusion characteristics in terms of shape, size and chemistry. Benefits directly attribute to calcium treatment include greater fluidity, smoother continuous casting by reducing nozzle blockage and improved cleanliness, machinability, ductility and impact strength in the final product[4]. Calcium treatment is commonly applied to modify the products of deoxidation into fluid inclusions by lowering the melting point. The amount of calcium added is the most important parameter of treatment. Pure calcium or calcium alloy are normally added into the molten steel at the final stage of refining after complete deoxidation of the steel. Introduction of calcium in steel has always has been a challenge to steelmakers due to its physical properties of low melting point (842°C), low boiling point (1483°C) high vapour pressure and low solubility in steel. The solubility of calcium in liquid iron (Fe) is reported to be 300ppm at 1600°C and one atmosphere of calcium vapour pressure (Table 1). Most grades of steel are treated with calcium using either a CaSi alloy or Pure Ca wire depending on the silicon

wire feeder guide pipe cored wire slag layer ca-vapor critical depth ca-liquid calcium injection

Fig 2. Critical depth of Ca wire injection

The authors are with Minex Metallurgical Co Ltd, Andheri (E), Mumbai 400069, India

S Ghosh, V Ranjan, S Kumar and SB Misra* V Ranjan, S Kumar & S B Misra

Parameter Cal-Lock

Compactness High Moderate

Recovery Higher by 20 -25% from regular Pure Ca 17 -22%

Waste emission low

Advantage of Cal-Lock

Compact bounding due to extra lock at seam joint, so can be placed deeper in steel ladle, which can reduce splash.

Comparatively High Higher Ca recovery can significantly reduce emission.

Fume generation low Comparatively High Less fume generation can create a more safety work environment

Shelf life High Low Due to high compactness of Calcium, oxidation is reduced enabling a high shelf life of coil

Usage by Wire feeder Yes Yes

The Cal-Lock wire can be used in a standard wire feeding machine and is suitable for all kinds of steel grade.

Lower Ca consumption results in less carbon emission Cost/Tonne Low Moderate Cost Reduction by at least 10%

Carbon emission Low Moderate

Table 2 Advantages of Cal-Lock

specification of the steel grade.

Literature review

Alumina inclusions occur as deoxidation products if aluminium is used to deoxidise the steel. Pure alumina has a melting point above 2000°C, so these inclusions are present in the solid state in liquid steel. The addition of calcium to steel will modify the inclusions to a lower melting point as shown in the Fig 1

The purpose of alumina modification is to produce the lower melting point phase 12CaO.7Al2O3 (C12A7)[5] which melts at 1400°C. The modification process is a cascade of reaction starting by modifying alumina to CaO.6Al2O3, then to CaO.2Al2O3, then CaO.Al2O3, and finally to 12CaO.7Al2O3. The liquid CaO content in the aluminate inclusions formed is approximately 50%.

Excess calcium addition will form CaS. Formation of liquid calcium aluminate is desirable. Too little calcium will lead to the formation of a higher melting point aluminate. Also, too much calcium will lead to the formation of CaS which is solid at steel melting temperatures. Calcium addition has to be optimised considering the [Al], [O], [S] content in the steel as well as its temperature. Today, attention is being shifted from calcium recovery/yield

to percentage globular inclusions as well as low inclusion density[6]

Injection of calcium

During ladle treatment using Ca, due to its physical properties of lower density and high reactivity, addition into the molten steel is difficult. This has led to the development of cored wire injection in which the calcium is contained as the core of a steel wire in preference to adding particles of the metal direct to the ladle. (Fig 2).

Cored wire feeding has many advantages, different cored wire products are available for different ladle treatments to achieve the specific steel quality.

Advantages of cored wire injection over adding Ca as lumps include:

• Higher steel yield

• Reduced production cost

• Accurate control of addition so providing control of steel quality

• Easy-to-install injection system, ie very low investment

• Minimise temperature loss of steel

• Less slag clogging

• No loss of product

• Improved health and safety and environmental issues

• Environment friendly, less pollution, less fuel to maintain ladle temperature

• Protection of the operators treating more hazardous steels such as leaded or high sulphur free machining steels.

Loss of calcium

One of the main technological problems of calcium injection is its low vaporisation temperature of 1494°C and its high vapour pressure. The only way to prevent calcium from vaporising at the surface is to inject it at a depth where the ferrostatic pressure is higher than the calcium vapour pressure. At ladle temperature, this means that calcium must be injected at least 1.5m below the steel surface to avoid vaporisation. Fig 2 and Fig 3 illustrate the relation between temperature and the required injection depth to avoid calcium vaporisation.

This is the main reason for the transition from the addition of lump Ca to wire injection. Wire injected at high speed goes deep enough before melting. It is also clear from the chart that a low ladle temperature during injection helps to prevent calcium vaporisation.

Recovery of calcium and retention in steel

The material balance for calcium consumption[7] is given by the following summation: Total amount injected:

Fig 3. Calcium injection depth, as a function of steel temperature

Fig 4. Calcium addition vs total O2 of liquid steel

Fig 5. Total O2 of liquid steel vs ladle treatment time

Regular Pure Ca Wire

Fig 6. Accurate of density controller

C = Csol + C as + C os + Cslag + Cb

Where:

Csol = amount dissolved in liquid steel

Cas = amount retained as aluminate and sulphide inclusion

C os = amount reacted with sulphur and aluminate and floated out Cslag = amount reacted with the ladle slag Cb = amount burned at the surface of the metal

The study of plant data on calcium treated steels and the author’s theoretical considerations indicate that Csol << C as

So for simplification: The recovery of Calcium is approximately:

The recovery factor for Calcium retention in liquid steel would be

Experience has shown that the efficiency factor for calcium retention decreases with an increasing amount of calcium injection beyond a certain amount, depending on the total oxygen content of the steel as oxide inclusions. If the steel is to be degassed for hydrogen removal, the calcium treatment should be made after vacuum degassing.

Low yield of calcium

A low yield of calcium to treat the steel will result from:

• Too low an injection depth due to low injection speed

• Excessively high steel temperature

• Saturation due to excessively high injection rate.

Calcium vaporises without performing its function, producing the characteristic white clouds of calcium oxide dust around ladle treatment stations during injection. The presence of these clouds is a sure sign of calcium loss.

Fig 7. Comparison of recovery of standard pure Ca wire vs Cal-Lock pure Ca wire

Critical points for Ca treatment of Al killed steel

Fig 4 enables us to determine how much Ca to inject depending on total oxygen estimate and susceptibility to reoxidation after Ca input. Variability in total oxygen in the steel at the final ladle furnace means steelmakers normally compensate by over-injecting calcium to avoid the risk of nozzle clogging during casting. Since calcium is nearly insoluble in steel and can only go into Al2O3 inclusions once they are saturated with CaO, any excess calcium by over-injection will just go to vapour leading to poor recovery.

Ideally, the total oxygen content of the steel would be reproducible from heat to heat for a given grade to optimise

Heat No Liquid metal tonne CaSi-kg Wire Density (g/m) LF Final Ca-ppm Recovery % Feeding Speed m/min Addition rate g/t Specific Addition rate- g/t/min 1 259 70 353 15 18.5 200 0.27 82 2 260 66 353 15 19.7 200 0.25 81 3 251 70 353 14 16.7 200 0.28 84 4 261 60 353 13 18.9 200 0.23 81 5 260 60 353 14 20.2 220 0.23 90

6 243 85 353 20 19.1 220 0.35 96 7 240 65 353 18 22.2 220 0.27 97 8 245 80 353 25 25.5 220 0.33 95 9 240 50 353 13 20.8 220 0.21 97 10 230 50 353 14 21.5 220 0.22 101 Average 248.9 65.6 353 16.1 20.3 212 0.26 90 Table

Fig 9. Minex Cal-Lock wire recovery and addition rate for Al killed LCAK steel

1 Cal-Lock LCAK 205 100 68 360 26 6.6 32 25.2 0.12 33 42

2 Cal-Lock LCAK 205 90 68 350 23 5.5 27 23.6 0.12 30 41

3 Cal-Lock LCAK 205 110 68 330 22 5.3 26 24.1 0.11 36 39

4 Cal-Lock LCAK 205 100 68 330 22 5.7 28 26.0 0.11 33 39

5 Cal-Lock LCAK 205 100 68 330 22 4.9 24 22.3 0.11 33 39

6 Cal-Lock LCAK 205 100 68 380 25 6.4 31 25.0 0.13 33 45

7 Cal-Lock LCAK 205 90 68 280 19 5.3 26 28.4 0.09 30 33

8 Cal-Lock LCAK 205 90 68 280 19 4.9 24 26.2 0.09 30 33

9 Cal-Lock LCAK 205 90 68 280 19 4.9 24 26.2 0.09 30 33

10 Cal-Lock LCAK 205 100 68 310 21 5.1 25 24.7 0.10 33 36

Average 205.00 97 68 323 21.82 5.47 26.70 25.2% 0.11 32 38

the quantity of calcium to achieve stable castability and final inclusion shape control. In reality, due to the variability of the total O2 between heats, the amount of calcium required is not the same every time (Fig 5).

Parameters of Ca injection

It is possible to choose a set of injection parameters to guarantee reasonable efficiency of calcium injection:

• Injection rate: This is possibly the most important factor for good yield and reproducibility. With available wire, ideal specific values are below 60g/t/min.

• Ladle temperature: As steel temperature is defined by its analysis and casting operating parameters, it is not possible to define a value in advance, but it should be as low as possible.

• To avoid surface melting and vaporisation: As a result of the high vapour pressure of calcium it is necessary to use a high wire speed to ensure the calcium reacts at depth in the ladle. However, a rapid feed rate increases the rate of calcium injected and risks saturation. Lowering the wire Ca content per metre may somewhat compensate for increased injection speed to avoid surface vaporisation. Injection speed in the range of 4 to 5m/sec are usually adequate.

• Pure calcium wire: Using adequate density wire (below 60-70 g/m) and 9mm diameter wire fed at a moderate speed (1.5 – 2.5 m/sec), a good combination to improve recovery is achieved.

• Inert gas (argon) purging from the bottom of the ladle is very important. It is recommended to use soft purging to prevent breaking the top slag during calcium injection.

Green CaSi cored wire

In its goal to contribute to the production

of ‘green steel’ and alloys, Minex has launched a ‘green’ calcium silicide (CaSi) injection cored wire.

Minex CaSi is sourced from Bozel in Brazil and is manufactured from 100% renewable energy. Bozel is the western hemisphere’s largest producer of calcium silicide. Brazil leads the world in hydroelectricity generation with 70% of its energy requirement from water, far more than the world average of 16%.

Sustainable manufacturing

Minex is committed to sustainable manufacturing and uses renewable energy to a large extent for its various manufacturing operations.

The electric power comes from captive solar (0.2MW) and wind (1.2MW) supplemented by power from the grid. All its products including cored wire have a low carbon footprint as a result. The range of calcium silicide cored wire offered comes with an advantage of not only quality but also control of chemistry, freedom from slag (CaO.SiO2), appropriate granulometry and lower ppm levels of oxygen.

‘Green metallurgy’

One of the goals at Minex is to progress the transition of metallurgy to ‘green metallurgy’ through a wide range of melt treatment solutions enabling clients to build a sustainable green business. Minex has enabled customers to reduce manufacturing costs considerably by lowering the amount of additive injection into the melt by preventing loss, oxidation and fading. A state-of-the-art testing facility ensures compliance with International Quality Standards.

Accurate density controller

An accurate density controller (ADC)

replaces the existing mechanical powder feed system by using advanced weighing and PLC in a closed loop proportional, integral, and derivative (PID) which controls the density of the powder during cored wire manufacturing (Fig 6).

PID is the control logic for the system to control conveyor speed according to the range specified and actual density. This is accomplished by varying conveyor speed in proportion to any deviation with a high response time of milliseconds.

The main aim of ADC is to achieve higher accuracy in density in the band of +/- 5g/m by using the automation system.

• ADC helps controlling and measure the density

• At every five metres data is captured and recorded automatically

• It has a low mechanical maintenance cost

• ADC helps reach the set point values within the +/- 5g/m

• It improves the quality of the wire in terms of density stability.

Developments in pure calcium treatment

Cal-Lock is a high performance double locked cored wire filled with high purity Ca incapsulated in wire for the treatment of steel. Cal-Lock reduces the cost by bringing down addition rates and ensures consistent recovery and at the same time is environment friendly (Fig 7).

High performance

A further feature of Cal-Lock is to provide high performance laser-welded wire filled with calcium in which the opening of the cored wire when immersed in molten steel is delayed, further improving recovery of Ca.

Pure solid calcium is run onto high grade cold rolled steel strip which is then bent

Table 4 Industrial trial and result of Cal–Lock

to enclose it and the seam welded by a special laser welder. This is the first time such a modified laser welder has been used by Minex to produce a wire for higher penetration to improve recovery. The advantages of Cal-Lock over conventional cored wire is summarised in Table 2

Industrial trials

Trials carried out at different steel plants with Minex CaSi cored wire obtained an average recovery of around 20% (Fig 8) compared to an existing 15-16% recovery of other CaSi wire additions. Due to the high performance of CaSi and accurate density control, the cost of calcium treatment is substantially reduced, the cleanness of the steel is improved and the carbon footprint reduced. Tests have been carried out at an integrated steel plant using 16mm diameter Green CaSi core wire. The results are as given in Table 3

Industrial trials with Cal-Lock: Trials with Cal-Lock pure calcium wire were carried out at an integrated steel plant with the aim of achieving Ca of 22-27 ppm in the final steel. The industrial trial with Cal-

Lock was very encouraging, giving improved Ca recovery as well as a lower standard deviation (Table 4).

Thus, the use of Cal-Lock pure Ca wire will reduce calcium treatment cost, improve consistency of recovery, and provide a higher yield of use of calcium as illustrated in Fig 9

In summary:

• Minex has developed different types of cored wire in addition to traditional Ca-Si wires for calcium treatment of steel.

• The characteristics of Ca-Si indicate an improvement in efficiency of use.

• Yield of calcium per percentage of globular inclusions and a lowering of inclusion density result.

• Continuous improvement is pursued at Minex on both calcium-based wires and feeding equipment.

• Cal-Lock is a high-performance double-locked wire containing pure high quality calcium locked in a solid wire for treating steel.

• A Green Ca-Si cored wire solution for the steel and foundry industries has been launched. �

Acknowledgement

The authors thank the management of Minex Metallurgical Company Ltd, Mumbai, India for their support.

References

1. D Coullombet , L Sancho etal , Proc 1st Int Symp. On Calcium Treatment, Glasgow, UNK, June, 1988, IOM, 83-87

2. E T Turkdogen Fundamental of Steelmaking, 1986, London

3. L F Zhang and B G Thomas, Proc National Steelmaking Symposium, Mexico, Nov 2003

4. A Ghosh Secondary Steelmaking Principles & Application, 2001, New York, CRC Press

5. Jose Carlos et.al Modification of oxide inclusions present in Aluminium killed low carbon steel by addition of Calcium Vol 57, No 3 , Ouro Petro, Jul/Sept 2004.

6. Control of Ca addition for improved cleanness of low C, Al killed steel, S Abdelaziz et al Ironmaking and Steelmaking, 2009, vol36, 432-441.

7. G J W Kor and P C Glaws

Fundamental of Iron and Steelmaking, 11th edition. 661,713 1998, London

Can they get any greener?

The US steel industry is greener than most; in fact it’s the greenest in the world at this present time with just over 70% of steelmakers producing steel using electric arc furnaces (EAFs). Producers continue to optimize their processes and it is estimated that by 2050 90% of mills will be electric. Myra Pinkham* reports

The US steel industry already has a lower carbon footprint than its counterparts in the major regions of the world, and it is expected to continue to get greener as it further expands its electric arc furnace (EAF) share, which by most estimates is already 70-72% with further growth expected going forward.

That, asserts Philip Gibbs, a senior metals equity analyst for KeyBanc Capital Markets, is the inverse to the rest of the world, where an average of 65% of steel is produced via blast furnaces, which is particularly the case in China and India, but also many European countries.

While EAF steelmaking is widely viewed as the biggest reason that average carbon emissions from steel production are lower in the US than elsewhere in the world, Kevin Dempsey said the situation is far more complex. Inputs used and energy expended, he said, are also a major part of

the equation, and we are not just talking about steel production, it’s also about how the electricity and other power used by steelmakers is generated.

“I see a generational opportunity for the US steel industry due to its commitment to a number of factors including environmental sensitivity, workforce development and energy conservation,” Ron Ashburn, executive director of the Association for Iron & Steel Technology (AIST) said, adding that “steel has the vigour of scale and accountability to hasten the path to net zero emissions economywide.”

“But while everyone is talking about green steel now, the real push won’t be for another five to 10 years,” John Anton, a director for S&P Global Market Intelligence, maintained, especially with the amount of paid for blast furnaces in operation. Although, even in the current challenging

economic climate, some moves are in progress.

This comes amid a backdrop of a surge in investments, and of plans for further investments in US steelmaking capacity. Philip Bell, president of the Steel Manufacturers Association, pointed out that with the goal to modernize, electrify and decarbonize the domestic steel industry, about 17Mt (short tons) of new EAF capacity is expected to be added between 2020 and 2024 – not just by minimills, but by integrated producers as well.

While he admits that the US steel industry is the cleanest in the world, Barry Schneider, senior vice president of Steel Dynamics’ flat roll steel group, maintained that given the energy intensity involved in converting iron ore and coal into molten steel, blast furnaces and basic oxygen furnaces (BOFs) consume about four times the energy and have about eight times the emissions as

EAFs. Because of that, Bell said that he sees EAFs as a true pathway to make low carbon-intensive steel.

“Despite all of this talk about still unproven processes like hydrogen-based steelmaking and carbon capture and sequestration, at the end of the day the existing way to make low carbon steel is via the EAF,” Bell said.

However, Kimberly Leppold, head of steel research at Fastmarkets MB, noted that at the same time BOF steelmakers are also making moves to get greener. Gibbs questioned how much more US EAF steelmakers can reduce the carbon footprint of the steels they make, given that their emissions are already so low. According to AIST’s Ashburn, given that steelmakers use scrap as their primary feedstock, the carbon dioxide emissions of steel produced using an EAF is only about 0.4 metric tonnes per tonne of crude steel.

Others, however, believe there are indeed other inroads that EAF steelmakers can make to be even greener. For example, Schneider said that EAF technology continues to evolve and become more energy efficient, helped, in part by using artificial intelligence.

Tim Landrum, Accenture’s North American lead, agreed, noting that in addition to investment in new technologyadvanced EAF facilities, the first net-zero carbon products are now being built–and there has been much more research into green energy to supply iron and steelmaking, as well as the rest of the supply chain. “At the same time, we are seeing more momentum in things like LEED v4 certifications for new facilities.”

Schneider agreed that the new

investments US steel producers are making reflect the entire energy chain going into the steelmaking process. That, he said, is the case with SDI’s new Sinton, Texas, mill. “It isn’t just the EAF that makes it greener,” Schneider said, “But the whole hot side of the plant, including how we melt scrap into liquid steel, how we process that liquid steel, how we continuously cast it and how we roll it. All of that is done more efficiently because of the newer technology.” Also, Sinton has access to clean power. “That was by design,” Schneider said. “It is one of the things that we considered when we were deciding where to put that facility.”

Leon Topalian, Nucor’s president and chief executive officer, made a similar case during Nucor’s recent third quarter earnings call, maintaining that once it comes online in 2023, its greenfield plate mill in Brandenburg, Ky., will play a key role in supplying sustainable steel to build up the US clean energy infrastructure.

He said, “It will be one of the few mills worldwide and the only one in the Western Hemisphere capable of supplying the critical components required to build offshore wind farms.

Bell said that the list of optimizations that EAF steelmakers are engaging in is a long one, including more efficiencies in scrap heating, the installation of slag doors, the use of more injection systems, new waste heat recovery system technologies and, as an ancillary, better scrap management and sorting. Eric Stuart, SMA’s vice president of environment and sustainability, pointed out that changes in the injection process allow steelmakers to use less fuel to get the same amount of combustion in their furnaces.

Schneider said that Steel Dynamics has

been working with outside engineering firms for guidance on how it can improve its production processes. “A lot of small things add up to big things,” he explained. He also noted that Steel Dynamics is one of the companies investing in Aymium, a leading producer of renewable biocarbon products, and plans to construct a facility utilizing that company’s technology for its internal needs. “We see this as a huge step to make our already low carbon footprint even lower,” Schneider said.

The EAF steelmakers’ green efforts are aided by the fact that they use an overwhelming percentage of scrap in their products, the AISI’s Dempsey pointed out, although he admits that they – as well as integrated steelmakers – need to blend that scrap with an increasing amount of ore-based metallics such as pig iron, direct reduced iron (DRI) and hot briquetted iron (HBI) to keep the levels of copper and other residuals found in scrap at a more acceptable level. This, Dempsey said, is particularly important for flat-rolled steel producers. S&P Global’s Anton said that because of this he had anticipated that when natural gas prices were low that more DRI and HBI capacity would have come online more than has done so.

AIST’s Ashburn pointed out that a lot of steelmakers are taking steps to control their upstream power supply emissions. But that isn’t all that easy to do, Fastmarkets’ Leppold said, maintaining that while the US electric power grid is continually getting greener, even all the planned renewable energy, including wind, solar and hydropower, isn’t enough to support all the energy-intensive industries in the US. “Renewable energy generation is growing,

Philip Bell, president of the Steel Manufacturers Association

Leon Topalian, Nucor’s president and chief executive officer

AIST’s Ron Ashburn

but not as quickly as it needs to,” she explained.

There are, however, moves to quicken its availability, which, Ashburn noted, is also a positive for steel consumption given that every megaWatt of wind power requires 120-180 tons of steel and every megawatt of solar power requires 35-45 tons of steel.

Adam Parr, a spokesman for Gerdau Long Steel North America, noted that the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act includes significant energy security and climate related measures, such as investments in renewable energy production and tax credits aimed at reducing carbon emissions. “An expansion and extension of solar tax credits is expected to have a meaningful impact on the solar energy sector,” he said, noting that Gerdau is also increasing its consumption of renewable energy, partly through the development of an 80-megaWatt solar facility adjacent to its Midlothian, Texas, structural steel mill.

Gerdau isn’t alone in such moves. For example, according to SMA’s Stuart, the Bighorn solar power project in Pueblo, Colorado, was built to power the EVRAZ Rocky Mountain steel mill, and is expected to offset about 90% of its power demand on a daily basis. Meanwhile, several other mills, including Commercial Metal’s micromills in Arizona and Nucor’s new greenfield mill in West Virginia, have power purchase agreements that involve the purchase of renewable credits for power that might or might not be generated near to where it is consumed and, according to Steel Dynamics’ Schneider, there are plans to eventually embrace new solar and wind projects.

In the future, there could be additional

investment in nuclear energy, Dempsey noted. Some mills are also looking toward increased investment in nuclear energy. “We are also seeing that with Nucor investing in NuScale Power, LLC (NuScale), a company that is looking to build small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) – nuclear reactors that can operate independently or in tandem with other modules to produce carbon-free electric power on a smaller scale and at a lower cost than traditional nuclear power,’’ he added.

BHP to collaborate on a multi-year trial of Mitsubishi’s carbon capture technology at both ArcelorMittal’s steel plant in Gent, Belgium, and at another yet unspecified site in North America. In its statement, the company maintained that there are currently no full-scale blast furnace CCUS facilities operating currently and only a few small capacity pilot projects underway or in the planning stage globally.

While its widespread use is generally seen as being at least a decade away, Leppold noted that there also continues to be research into the use of hydrogen either as an iron ore reductant source or as an energy source instead of natural gas.

According to Anton, if EAFs use hydrogen as a power source they could cut emissions by 91%. However, it would also increase their cost by 20% per ton. “Everyone wants clean steel, but no one wants to pay 20% more for it,” he noted. Also, AISI’s Dempsey noted that there are a number of technological challenges to using hydrogen at a substantial scale, as well as certain safety issues.

Especially given the interest by enduse customers for greener raw materials, US steelmakers would like to be more emissions light, but KeyBanc’s Gibbs questioned whether, given the inroads they have already made, if US mini-mill steelmakers will just continue to do what they have been doing and making incremental improvements coming through their investments in new and upgraded capacity.

“I think that it is the integrated producers that will be making the most significant inroads in carbon emissions reduction over the next five years,” he said, noting that they will be doing so through a reduction in coke and blast furnace-related production and by adding EAF capacity.

In co-operation with the federal government, the US steel industry is looking at making certain further technology advancements that will have the end result of lowering their carbon footprint, Ashburn noted.

One – carbon capture utilization and storage or sequestration (CCUS), is particularly being pursued by integrated producers, who are looking to develop systems to provide continuous separation of carbon dioxide from other gases that could be deployed elsewhere.

In late October, ArcelorMittal entered into an agreement with Mitsubishi and

Currently, Dempsey noted, in the US there is no longer an EAF and an integrated industry, but rather the steel industry uses a lot of EAF technology with some iron making technology, some still blast furnacebased and an increased focus upon DRI production, with every major US steelmaker operating at least some EAFs.

And there is more upside to EAF share, Bell said, noting that the US Departmenr of Energy has predicted that by 2050, 90% of US steel will be made by EAFs. “And I think that the future of US steelmaking is going to be greener given the visionary efforts of EAF steel producers, Bell said.” �

Waste not, want not

With the growing pressure to reach decarbonization targets, the UK steel industry’s net-zero ambitions could be supported with home-produced waste, says Ian Jones.*

THE UK is at risk of falling behind its EU peers in the quest to lower carbon emissions and make the steel industry cleaner. We know production is highly carbon intensive – it’s the UK’s largest industrial emitter – and, according to the Climate Change Committee, in order to achieve targets, emissions need to fall 23% on 2020 levels by 2030.

With the Clean Steel Fund not planning to give out money until next year (introduced in 2019 with £250m of government cash to support new technologies and processes), we’re only going to fall further behind our EU competitors, as well as those further afield.

Lord Deben, the chair of the Climate Change Committee and a former Conservative Party environment secretary, said recently that the UK government had set strong targets on cutting emissions but policy to achieve them was lacking: “The government has willed the ends but not the means.” He also stated that current measures will simply not meet net-zero targets as they stand.

While it’s disappointing that the government is failing to enact the policies needed to reach its net-zero ambitions, we have to acknowledge that the challenges go much further.

The UK conundrum

We’re in a bizarre situation here in the UK.

We send waste that can be repurposed as fuel either to landfill or to other countries to turn into energy – while blocking UK industry from using its own waste for energy.

Policymakers need to recognise that if all recyclables have been removed and the waste has been refined, we must push for solid improved recovered fuel (SIRF) pellets

to be considered as an ‘end of waste’ product and allow UK industry to adapt to this lower-cost and greener solution more easily.

Yes, the government is focused on other means including renewable energy, as it should be, but this isn’t ever going to be the complete answer to the UK’s energy security challenge, certainly not in the short term.

We must get serious about accepting refined and repurposed waste, which cannot be recycled further and would otherwise end up in landfill, as a fuel and an energy source – so that we can supply UK industry.

Wasting the solution

We recently commissioned management consultant and waste specialist Monksleigh

*CEO at alternative-fuel pellet producer, WKE

to conduct an independent report into our SIRF pellets, and it was found that the pellets perform significantly better than coal and natural gas on carbon emissions.

As a waste-to-pellet company that turns materials such as wood, paper, card and non-chlorinated plastics that are destined for landfill into alternative fuel for power plants, cement kilns and steel manufacturers, we were keen to demonstrate categorically that there are substantial benefits to using SIRF pellets – including that they perform two times better on CO2 emissions than natural gas, and three and a half times better than coal.

The results demonstrate that SIRF pellets work particularly well as a substitute for coal, including coking coal, foaming coal in the EAF process, pet coke and industrial coal, in steel manufacturing. The findings

Global energy costs are rising, and the war in Ukraine has pushed them higher. Teamed with our net-zero ambitions and concerns around our dependence on expensive fossil fuels from overseas, there has to be an intensifying of efforts to find homegrown greener and cheaper sources.

Currently, the UK exports around 2.75Mt of refuse-derived fuel (RDF) and solid recovered fuel (SRF) from England to EU and Nordic countries – something that WKE would like to see change.

The RDF and SRF industries are moving in the right direction, but rather than sending waste to other countries, couldn’t it be put to better use in this country and used to boost our own fuel security? We’re a long way from self-sufficiency and should be evaluating all our options if we’re to reduce our dependency on costly fossil fuels.

Ready for action

Our Middlesbrough site received its first supply of waste in June this year, with a view to testing our line one in-feed material handling system, the firefly suppression system and the metal extraction system prior to the first of two driers.

The facility has been able to process the waste at a rate of 13 tonnes per hour, and the dryer, which was partially running at 65°C, performed better than expected, reducing the moisture content of the SRF from 14.5% to 4%.

We’re on target to produce our first batch of pellets for storage and customer trials this summer – and then we’ll be undertaking full-speed performance tests. Once in full production, we’ll be running

two dryers and processing 36 tonnes of waste per hour – which amounts to a production capacity of 250kt of SIRF pellets a year.

We believe these pellets are a key part of the solution to fight reliance on fossil fuels for the steel industry, especially considering their performance when compared with coal and natural gas on emissions.

The bottom line is that burning waste means less extraction of damaging fossil fuels, less need to send damaging waste to landfill – and significant reductions in CO2 emissions as a result.

It’s an innovation that needs nurturing as we look to a future in which alternative fuels are affordable, reliable and costeffective – regardless of government incentives.

Here’s how it works:

• SRF comes onto site having gone through processes including shredding, separation, screening, and metal removal. It’s then subjected to further visual inspection and analysis for shred size and moisture content.

• The SRF goes through lowtemperature belt driers. Here the material is dried to sub 5% moisture. Once dried the product is transferred to the milling unit.

• At the milling unit the material is screened again with an air density separator and destoner, before going through a magnetic separator to remove any ferrous materials prior to milling.

• The material is reduced in size in the hammer mill, which incorporates a dust filtration system and cyclone, before transferral to the pelleting system.

also revealed that carbon emissions from the manufacturing of the pellets was considerably lower than for sending the waste straight to landfill sites.

A. WKE plant B. Ian Jones C. WKE plant

All images: Credit to Chris J Parker Photography

• Once in the pelleting system, the product is once again sent through a magnetic separator to remove any remaining ferrous metals.

• Sub-15mm pellets are produced in the pelleting mill, which are then cooled and transported to storage silos ready for export via ship, rail and road.

These pellets have more than 50% biomass content, made from a mix of dry waste materials such as wood, paper, card and non-chlorinated plastics that are carefully processed to create a clean, highly specified and consistent alternative fuel that’s perfect for high-energy users.

They are easy to transport and are suitable for power generation, steel production, brickmaking and cement and lime production. Another benefit is that they can be used alongside other fuels, allowing businesses to mix with coal, pet coke or wood as they travel through their carbon reduction journey.

The UK is 10 years behind many of our European counterparts when it comes to repurposing waste that’s destined for

landfill into clean alternative fuel. We have the technology and investment to repurpose this into a cleaner, greener alternative fuel. While developments have taken place, we’ve been caught up in red tape and fear while allowing our waste to be fuel for other countries.

If statistics and economic indicators

are to be believed, we are headed into a European recession which will impact all carbon intensive industry including steel manufacturers. Now is the time to not only address the serious energy crisis on our hands by utilising our own waste as a greener fuel, but to do so at a lower cost than traditional fuels. �

WKE plant

Credit: Chris J Parker

AC-unit for severe duty conditions works.

The Sustainable Steel Strategies Summit 2023, brought to you by the makers of the Future Steel Forum and Steel Times International, is shaping up to be an exciting two-day event aimed exclusively at the global steelmaking industry.

As the steel industry strives for a more sustainable future, the Sustainable Steel Strategies Summit will hear what the steelmakers themselves have to say about climate change and how they intend to make greener steel in the near future.

SPEAK

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In conversation with...Rutger Gyllenram

If you’re going to ask anybody a question about the state of the steel industry, in a technical sense, you can’t go far wrong with Rutger Gyllenram of Kobolde & Partners. It was fortunate, therefore, that STI was in Stockholm where he is based, and that he had a little spare time to discuss, in some depth, the decarbonization of steelmaking. Matthew Moggridge* took copious notes.

“I believe we are now starting to understand that decarbonization is not all about using hydrogen,” Rutger told me as we sat in his bright and breezy offices on a Wednesday afternoon in late August. “You have to take into account what kinds of iron ore do we have available on the market and is the electric arc furnace possible for all types of DRI?”

Steelmakers have recognized this but it’s still not something you will see in open discussion, he asserted. “It’s still all about hydrogen,” he adds, arguing that while the ‘nice coloured drawings’ produced with CAD/CAM software are all well and good, they are very far from a realized process, possibly in the region of 10 to 20 years before such process alternatives become a reality.

For Rutger, however, there is a problem

and that is possibly a lack of urgency. Steelmakers are quite happy to put up alternative production technologies and say that it is something they will be doing in the future. That, he says, is a major problem ‘because it reduces the drive to do something immediately’. And if you’re looking at doing something immediately, how about using the processes that are at hand? “We all know that producing DRI with natural gas is cost-efficient and of course you have a carbon footprint, but it’s lower than the blast furnace so just by producing DRI, for example, in the Middle East, and charging it into a blast furnace will reduce the carbon footprint of blast furnace iron globally,” Rutger enthused. “And this could be done on a large scale within the next 10 years,” he added.

“If we look at the hydrogen route, it’s

*Editor, Steel Times International

not going to happen in the next 10 years because we don’t have the fossil-free energy to produce the hydrogen,” Rutger explained, adding that submerged arc furnace technology on a commercial scale won’t become reality for at least a decade. “Such plants exist, but not on a commercial scale and not in the volumes we need to make a difference,” he added.

I suggested that coke making and sintering are the problem when it comes to blast furnace steelmaking and reducing that all-important carbon footprint, which needs to be reduced considerably. “If we are keeping the blast furnace, we need some portion of coke. We could reduce coke consumption by half, perhaps, and that will make a difference and we can make it up with other fuels and, of course, by charging DRI. But the basis of how the blast furnace

works is that the coke creates these gas windows and it’s important to have gas flow through the furnace,” said Rutger. Coke making and sintering cannot be completely eliminated in blast furnace steelmaking, but it is possible to use pellets instead of sinter. “And the good thing with pellets is that you could have a very good reducible pellet with a lower silicon content compared to sinter, so just by doing that you could reduce the amount of slag and, therefore, reduce energy usage,” explained Rutger, stressing that reducing coke and coal consumption are things that can be done today.

And there’s the rub, so to speak. There is a lot of talk about hydrogen steelmaking, quite rightly, as a technology of the future and not of today – a perspective that breaks down a little when you consider that H2 Green Steel is hoping to be up and running in 2025, which is just around the corner, and that the people at HYBRIT have already proved that it is possible to produce steel using hydrogen. Steelmakers, says Rutger, understand there is plenty they can do now to reduce the carbon footprint of steel manufacturing and while a lot of them have their sights set on the bigger picture –high-capacity hydrogen steelmaking – they are currently operating within the confines of their own economic resources.

In other words, this isn’t the end of the blast furnace – far from it. “Oh, yes, I think that everybody agrees that. What we have to say is ‘keep your blast furnaces, but you must do the improvements that are possible; and I think that would be a much better attitude, and the companies can then say, ‘okay, we have the blast furnaces, we don’t know if we’re going to keep them’, but we must get rid of the possibility of doing nothing.”

Whether the climate targets set will be achieved is debatable. “It depends on what we do and how we do it,” according to Rutger. “To be honest, I don’t have a clue, but what strikes me and what terrifies me is that people don’t even consider the risk of standing there in 2050 without any improvement.”

The steel industry cannot sit around waiting for the grand solution and must instead look at what can be done today. “And then we improve, improve, improve and the absolutely simplest improvement that you can make is mass produce DRI in countries with natural gas and charge that

into the blast furnaces,” Rutger suggested.

Charging blast furnaces globally with pre-reduced material by replacing a certain amount of the burden with DRI will reduce the carbon footprint and it is something that can be done today using current technology. The DR plants needed, says Rutger, can be modernized later, converted to CCS or hydrogen. “It’s the suppliers who say their technology is hydrogen-ready – very good – but you can start with natural gas. Let’s stop charging blast furnaces with only iron ore and sinter and start charging them with DRI.”

The whole notion of ‘either we reach the top or we don’t go anywhere at all’ is misguided. And while, says Rutger, there are ambitious companies out there going for the top prize – HYBRIT and H2 Green Steel spring to mind – most companies will not reach that level for a very long time, but they could be ‘carbon or climate-improved’, which is a step in the right direction, rather than saying their steel is not fossil-free. It’s all about taking whatever steps you can, says Rutger.

Kobolde is in the process of auditing existing ‘new steelmaking technologies’ to understand what kind of standardization will be needed going forward. So far, the company has listed 25 initiatives, some of which are very ambitious and others less so; but ultimately their existence is all about giving steelmakers something to show. But the auditing exercise, like most things, throws up more questions than answers and has led Kobolde towards answering questions on standardization and what kind of standards will be needed in the future – and working on existing standards. It is important that fossil-free steel really is fossil-free, says Rutger.

“You need to have all different kinds of levels: you need, ‘climate-improved’ –meaning the steelmaker doesn’t have to go all the way; or you can have ‘climate neutral’ meaning it’s not fossil-free but something has been done – offsetting or carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) –or you can actually work with something which is fossil-free,” Rutger explained.

He says that standards – or levels of ‘greenness’ – are essential in the brave new world of green steelmaking. “You really need to have all these levels and, of course, if you can do things without involving fossil energy, that is the best thing for the future, but we will see where we land in the

Rutger (above) is optimistic for the future:

“I think that the sooner we have a discussion based on facts and not wishful thinking, the better”

future,” he said.

“When we talk about ‘do what you can now’, we must understand that developing a new process takes time and we haven’t really seen what kind of development problems are possible with hydrogen. It is excellent in the way that it doesn’t emit carbon dioxide, but that is the only merit. The reduction process is endothermic so there is a need to work very hard on heat balance in the furnace as hydrogen has a lower CP and, therefore, it carries less energy and, of course, travels very fast because it’s very light. It travels very fast in the shaft and that is seldom mentioned in the articles you read. You say that, okay, you can calculate an energy use, you can calculate yield, perhaps, but you can’t really calculate the practical problems. I’m not saying it’s a bad idea to reduce things with hydrogen, just bear in mind it is not all that simple,” said Rutger.

Rutger believes that current test facilities are small or medium-sized pilot plants. He believes, therefore, that it will take decades before the industry comes up with the same module sizes for a 100% hydrogen plant that it currently has with a natural gas plant. “If we have it by 2050, it’s a great success,” he said. “But that’s my assessment, I may be totally wrong. I may be pessimistic, but the problem is not if I’m right or wrong, the problem is that when we make our decisions today about what to do, we should take into the calculus that we have this risk and then if we solve it, wonderful…but don’t count on it

“Nobody has done it yet, in terms of work out a way of using hydrogen bearing in mind its low capacity to carry heat and other aspects and yet that is what SSAB and H2 Green Steel are saying they are capable of doing,” Rutger said. “I can’t say they are

wrong; I can only look at the number of process ideas that come up every year and how many of those actually succeed, which is close to zero.”

Another big question is whether operators are confident that those supplying the technology can do what they claim they can. Are they trustworthy? “Anybody buying this technology off-theshelf must buy it with guarantees,” he said.

Lastly, the question of DRI, an essential ingredient for fossil-free steelmaking, but is there enough of it or will operators have to rely upon scrap?

“Well, it takes a couple of years to build a DR plant so I think that nobody would build an EAF plant without having sorted out where they would get their raw materials, so I guess it’s self-regulating in some way,” explained Rutger. “Sweden, for example, exports scrap so I’ve done some calculations and for Sweden to supply SSAB Oxelösund and H2 Green Steel in Boden with Swedish scrap, it’s possible to a large extent, but we’d have to upgrade the scrap; so if we’re only talking Sweden for the first part of H2 Green Steel’s expansion I don’t think it’s a catastrophe if it takes time for them to start their DRI production. It may be possible, but of course then we would remove some scrap from the world market and scrap prices may surge, so in the long run I think we really need to produce more DRI globally.”

At this moment in time there are only two DR processes – Midrex and Energiron. Operators must have one or the other. I asked if that situation is likely to change and whether a third process was out there somewhere.

“There is an Iranian shaft furnace process and they’ve built some shafts in Iran, but of course it’s similar to Midrex or something

like that,” Rutger said. “The big difference between Energiron and Midrex is that the former is a high-pressure vessel for autoreforming of natural gas in the furnace, whereas the Midrex process has the reforming outside.”

As for which process to choose, certainly it’s a case of who gives you the best deal, that’s important, said Rutger, and there are trade-offs between the two processes, he added. “I’ve spoken to a guy who has been working with both processes and he said that Energiron is the process with the lowest OPEX. The Midrex process is more stable and easier to use,” said Rutger, and there are clearly advantages on both sides.

Whether one process will become the dominant force in the hydrogen era is uncertain. “I don’t think anybody wants to have just one player in the market,” said Rutger, arguing that more players are needed. “I think HYBRIT is trying to develop a third [process] and I think their plans are to develop a process of their own, which they will sell or licence. Cost for development of a new process, of course, is a big problem.

Making fossil-free steel isn’t rocket science, according to Rutger. “If you take iron ore and pour hydrogen through it you will get iron,” he said. “The interesting thing is you need to get it with a minimum of hydrogen circulation because if you have a very low utilization ratio of the hydrogen at the top then you will have to take it back and cool it, dry it and heat it and send it in again, circulating it several times. The basic idea is that you need to reach close to the equilibrium between hydrogen, water vapour and iron oxides in the off gas and if you don’t reach that then it will become very costly.”

The cost is immense, said Rutger, and

An artist’s impression of H2 Green Steel’s Boden facility in Sweden

the best calculations suggest that it will be 30% more expensive compared with conventional blast furnace steel.

But what about the consumers? What if the automakers say they don’t want to pay X more for fossil-free steel when they can get ‘climate neutral’ steel cheaper? How much is the stamp ‘fossilfree’ worth and will consumers consider it worth buying when there are other categories of ‘green steel’ out there that might be considerably cheaper?

In other words, a huge minefield awaits operators in the steel industry of the future. “They will need to put a lot of effort into promoting the ‘fossil-free’ concept in terms of comparing net and gross CO2 emissions. Gross emissions are before offsetting or CCS and then you have the net, which is what comes afterwards, and if you only look at the net then you may have climate neutral steel from a number of production alternatives. With hydrogen reduction gross is fossil-free which is an advantage that has to be explained, and companies going for hydrogen reduction are aware of this and are struggling with it now,” explained Rutger.

“A waiting game is in progress,” said Rutger. “We have Hybrit and H2 Green Steel and many other different processes at different stages of progression. We’re not quite there yet.

“I started my career in the 1980s, we had the steel crisis in the 1970s and everybody said then that we must renew the steel industry in Europe and America and do something new, get rid of the blast furnace, the sinter plants, the coke plants and do something different,” said Rutger. “In Sweden we had five or six process ideas and many more in the world and many of them were developed to pilot plants and later closed. As a young researcher I spoke at a conference in Jamshedpur, India in 1988, talking about iron and steelmaking under Indian conditions. It was great fun, we compared the different processes and, of course, since the new processes didn’t have the capex of the sinter and coking plants, many of them out-performed the blast furnace by far in theory. But the reality was that if you have good raw materials, process them in the coking plant, in the sinter plant, you charge it properly mixed and you replace some coke with coal injection and so on, the blast furnace becomes extremely competitive and furthermore, it was possible to scale up, so whereas many of the new processes could go to 500kt-1Mt, the blast furnace went up to 3.5Mt in just a decade. In the end, from all these projects, only Corex and its sister project Finex based on coal gasification technology survived the development boom. Otherwise, some of the alternatives were built in one plant, and operated for a short period.”

Ultimately, Rutger is optimistic for the future. “I think that the sooner we have a discussion based on facts and not wishful thinking the better, and then we can do the real stuff and companies will understand what they need to do and what they need to do now,” he said, adding that he is currently working in industrial consortia on iron reduction with syngas of biogenic origin that with CCS can create a carbon sink and on improving the quality of recycling, taking care of the alloys and finally trying to get the industry to understand that we need to go to the start on a wild scale, to charge blast furnaces with DRI.

“And understand that you may produce DRI in one place and use it in another place and if you do that, you’ll have a good start, a reasonable way to start, and you can start now, tomorrow, and then, when we have the new technologies, then we’ll go for that.”

Innovation through adversity

In Germany, the consequences of global warming have driven water down to levels that cannot allow for trading – once bustling waters are now terminal stations for dormant cargo ships – a salient example of external conditions that are driving heavy industries to renegotiate the fundamental ways in which product is created and sold. For the steelmakers present at the Badische–Stahl Symposium, however, downturns are ‘important’– a chance to question traditions, patterns, and behaviours, and to manipulate adversity, into innovation. By Catherine Hill*

‘‘I had a car accident not too long ago’’, my Uber driver announces smoothly.

- ‘‘Oh? I hope it wasn’t too serious?’’

- ‘‘Not as bad as the last one.’’

My seat-belt suddenly feels a little loose.

- ‘‘They were all Toyotas. Never buy a Toyota’’.

I assure him that Toyotas aren’t in the running for my next car purchase, mainly due to the fact that I don’t have a driving licence.

After a few minutes of concentrated silence, he asks me why I have come to Offenburg, and I tell him that I write for a steel magazine. The silence continues.

I arrive in Offenburg a half hour later, grateful for my life, and brimming with anti-Toyota propaganda.

I have come to Germany to cover the Badische Stahl-Engineering Symposium, which has been taking place every four

years since 2002 (the 1st Symposium being postponed due to 9/11– which, when told at the time, sent a proprietary hush of solicitude through the room). The venue for the event is the Reithalle, or ‘Riding Hall’; the former parading site of the French armed forces, later transformed into a contemporary event hall. When it’s not hosting steel professionals from across the globe, the hall plays host to jazz clubs, cabarets, ballets, and even a Celtic folk club. I’m sat at the back of the room, increasingly aware that not long ago, my chair may have witnessed a bearded man in a waistcoat and fedora, playing the bagpipes.

Sebastian Baumgartner, managing director of Badische-Stahl Engineering (BSE) takes to the stage, decidedly sans-bagpipes. We are told that it is his birthday, which certainly seems to represent well the mood of the venue, in which people are slapping backs, grasping hands, and generally in a celebratory disposition. A central aspect of

*Editorial assistant, Steel Times International

the steel industry is that it feels like a microcosmic community; not in a claustrophobic sense, but as Clay Gross, meltshop manager of Steel Dynamics Inc. later tells me at lunch; ‘‘We all help each other out in the industry’’, and this camaraderie is something that is keenly felt.

Baumgartner starts by citing the hardhitting challenges the industry currently faces; ‘skyrocketing raw material prices, interruptions in the global supply chain, and dropping demand’. ‘‘The steel industry’’, he says, ‘‘was still recovering from the pandemic, and then inflation hit.’’ What is ‘striking’, to Baumgartner, though, is that ‘America has much higher profitability compared to the rest of the world, but Europe is still doing much better than expected’, despite all the factors which would logistically seem to lead to an industry in crisis. However, despite Europe doing ‘better than expected’, the question remains of whether it will continue

tomorrow – says Baumgartner, ‘‘there’s only so long customers can keep absorbing higher prices; demand is already reducing and prices are dropping.’’ On top of this, what ‘scares’ Baumgartner, is a quote from Baowu Steel, stating that the ‘steel market is facing a steeper downturn than in 2015 with no end or bottom in sight’. To avoid a sheer drop, he says, ‘‘we need to minimize our ecological footprint, and we need to keep the industry profitable.’’ It’s big talk; but the graft is clear; with no safety nets in place to ensure survival, steelmakers are in no habit to make empty promises. To say, in steel, is to do.

For many, the term ‘downturn’ represents struggle, adversity, hardship; but for Mauricio Metz, industrial corporate director of American steel producer, Gerdau, the downturn his company faced was ‘important’. In Metz’s eyes, it represented an opportunity – with the nature of the market being cyclical, they simply needed to await, and prepare, for conditions to reverse. When things finally ‘boomed’,

plants were started up again – and Gerdau was able to capitalize. Strategy wasn’t only limited to foreshadowing circumstances, however, and Metz stresses that the principal challenge Gerdau faces is ‘how to hire new people and increase turnover to grow the company’. This is an ongoing process, with no defined beginning or end, and according to Metz, begins with inclusion programmes, internships, and training. By introducing fresh perspectives to the workplace – growth becomes unavoidable – and, says Metz, the results speak for themselves – as a result of the programmes ‘80% of plants reached their best performance ever, and 30% average capacity was added between 2019 and 2022’. ‘‘The most important aspect of our culture,’’ Metz concludes, ‘‘is people’’.

The theme of workforce development continues in presentations from Mr Wu, chief financial and accounting officer at Fushun Special Steel Co Ltd., and Juan Xavier Falconi, chief financial officer at Aceria del Ecuador C.A. (Adelca). Mr Wu

emphasizes the need for a positive and productive workplace culture, saying that ‘it takes 10 years to grow trees and a hundred years to cultivate people’; in plainer terms, to do a good job in employee ability management, ‘you need to commit to the task.’ Falconi is introduced to the audience by Stephanie Meier, project manager at BSE, who ebulliently announces that ‘last week, you told me would you run the Berlin marathon – now the stage is yours to run!’ Speaking on Adelca’s construction of a new plant in Milagro, Falconi states that the biggest challenge the company faced was people; ‘‘we did three things’’, he says, ‘‘we defined the team, we gave more responsibility to the floor people, and then we switched the mentality from firefighting to stability.’’ The lowest priority, he continues, was ‘volume and productivity’, but despite this, productivity soared – as workers were empowered to be part of a larger shift, which stressed the importance of every individual and their capacity to bring change. For Metz, Wu, and Falconi,

a business is as great as the sum of its workers. Steel is tactile, manual; it conjures images of rough hands, and heavy lifting. Steelmaking is intrinsically linked to human labour – so to neglect the importance and relevance of each employee, creates conflict with the very foundation of what making steel is and means.

Scrap metal is crucial in terms of achieving decarbonization goals in steelmaking. According to WorldSteel, ‘every tonne of scrap used for steel production avoids the emission of 1.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide, and the consumption of 1.4 tonnes of iron ore, 740 kg of coal and 120 kg of limestone.’ However, the expansion of scrap-based steel production depends on the availability of high-quality scrap, which is less flexible with demand, compared to the supply of iron ore. Denis Reuter, chief operating office at TSR Recycling, expects around a 100% increase in demand for scrap metal – but to grow the export market, ‘we have to invest into recycling technology’. This makes Reuter sceptical of seeing immediate gains in the export market – as he hasn’t yet seen the shift needed in investments. Brian Bliss, general manager of programmes and publications at the Association of Iron and Steel Technology (AIST) adds to the topic of market growth, stating that ‘global demand previously showed that we were beginning to come out of the pandemic, but as a result of the Ukraine crisis, growth slowed down.’ As a result of this, Bliss says, ‘’any other recovery post-pandemic has slowed; due to the energy crisis, inflation, droughts, and China’s property development downturn’’. While business ‘hasn’t fallen off a cliff yet this year’, there is, he emphasizes, ‘a lot of uncertainty’. An outlier to vastly

difficult conditions, however, says Bliss, is the potential within the electric vehicle market, in which demand – and indeed investment – is surging. And it’s not only a sparse opportunity of a single piece of equipment which requires steel; multiple components such as battery supports, motors, and charging infrastructure will boost steel demand – and this demand is mirrored in other renewable energy sectors (wind and solar power) in which the very foundations often involve the use of steel. One thing, for both Reuter and Bliss is clear – that demand and investment will be a survival line in a time of upheaval and uncertainty.

as well as energy prices, with Menges stating that there are ‘no positive signs on the horizon’, in terms of prices slackening, and legislation providing necessary support. Pek Hoong Chong, chief technical officer of Steel Asia, however, feels that the government support in his region had, and continues to receive, is ‘generous’–which allows the company to weather out increasingly harsh conditions. In the region of Turkey, Fatih Goekce, strategic planning and research and development manager of Diler Demir Celik, says that capacity has doubled – with its ‘central global location’ being a great opportunity for exports and production. Although he shares the same concerns as the other global steelmakers, particularly in regard to CBAMs and the ETS – which he says ‘allow systems to profit, but impacts the industry’, there is ‘no time to complain’, as it is ‘better to fight’. A common view shared among steelmakers –that adversity demands action, and action drives innovation.

A panel discussion on ‘mid-term challenges for profitability in the steel industry’ then follows, with Markus Menges, an executive board member of Sudweststahl AG, commenting on the challenges of scrap availability and pricing, and Luis Barrenechea, CEO of Optimus Steel, citing the issue of inflation; ‘’In the US’’, he says, ‘‘we don’t know how to deal with inflation’’. Carbon taxes are also raised,

Day two of the Symposium begins with two presentations on the latest technologies from Badische Stahl-Werke (BSW) and BSE, including the DoorMan–which guards the EAF shell for controlled melting and operation, much like, says Raif Schweikle, senior vice-president of BSE, Cerberos – the multi-headed dog which guarded the gates of the underworld in Greek mythology. Eugene Pretorius, manager of steelmaking technology at Nucor, then takes to the stage – focusing on the ever-relevant topic of safety within steelmaking. According to Pretorius, Nucor has a ‘safety-focused culture’, which includes an on-site health clinic, cafeteria, and employee gym. This focus, however, was not always the case within

the company walls – as in 2000, almost two employees a week had ‘DART cases’–which are defined as recordable injuries or illnesses that result in time away from work. During this time, says Pretorius, the culture was ‘work hard and make tons’, however, the hiring of a new vice president in 2006 drove an ethos change that stands today – which is the belief in zero incidents, with no excuses. The ‘cowboy, or risk-taker no longer works at Nucor’, Pretorius adds – ‘they are a rotten apple, and can’t be part of the company’. This hard-line shift is continued in what Pretorius later describes to me as a company that is insistently nonunion to drive employee trust. ‘‘We have to find ways to encourage our workers to have trust in the plant and in the business model’’, he says, asserting that the best way to acquire trust is to demand it – building a workplace that priorities prevention over cure. Unfortunately, no system is perfect, as a DART case occurs the same morning Pretorius makes his presentation – after close to a year of zero incidents. No manifesto can be more powerful than a workplace filled with fire, chemicals, and

constantly moving parts. Luis Barrenechea then shares his experience of constructing a new state-of-the-art plant, from a 70s brownfield facility – ‘‘the more we looked at the place’’, Barrenechea says, with a wellconcealed layer of exasperation, ‘‘the more we realized we needed to fix it’’. However, by prioritizing ‘safety, environment, and productivity’, a shift started to take place. Barrenechea ends his presentation with a humble offering; ‘‘are we there yet? No, but I know we can get there’’.

Axel Eggert, director-general of the European Steel Association, then brings to the fore the no-win situation currently vexing the industry; ‘‘if you don’t decarbonize, you will be hit by carbon prices – if you do, you will be affected by energy prices’’. The solution, says Eggert, is policies to support decarbonization –and more specifically, the creation of ‘lead markets for green steel, and incentives for downstream sectors to encourage the use of green steel’. ‘‘If we do not master this’’, he adds, ‘‘it will be incredibly difficult to achieve the objective of a decarbonized steel industry’’. Gerhand Bünemann,

managing director of BeKa Feuerfest, echoes these statements in the context of scrap, stating that ‘from garbage you cannot make gold’– to make good product, there needs to be investment in high-quality scrap and energy efficient production, which not only lowers the rate of CO2 emissions, but allows companies to benefit from decreased energy rates. The final speaker of the Symposium, Dr Dominic Schöne, meltshop manager at Dillinger, speaks on the challenges of the company’s transition from BOFs to EAFs. To begin with, challenges were more basic, says Schöne; it was a question of ‘where to build it and when’, but the situation soon became more complex, as metallurgical requirements and casting time were called into question, as well as political funding, regulatory conditions and framework. The hope is, that by 2045, three EAFs will be running, evolving Dillinger’s steelmaking process into one that is decarbonized, efficient and produces high-quality product.

Baumgartner closes the Symposium accompanied by a hearty applause and reminds attendees of the evening’s entertainment – a night at Offenburg’s Hotel Liberty, a former prison recently renovated into a boutique hotel. ‘We expect you to party like Elvis in Jailhouse Rock!’, says Baumgartner. I think about a passing comment from Pretorius, from when we were sat earlier at lunch; that ‘this is the most exciting time to be a part of this industry. Everything is changing, all the time’. It’s true; everything is changing all the time; and part of me can’t help but think that without all the pressures, and constant cycles of challenges, the industry would lose what I’ve come to view as an inherent personality trait – a Darwinian instinct to overcome the insurmountable; an instinct not to complain, but ‘to fight’. �

Helping steelmakers secure quality

LAP, a leading supplier of high-precision laser measurement systems, supports steel production via its quality assurance and process optimization in rolling mills. Fabian Beck* and Volker Gödecke** expect that the growing quality demands in steel production will drive business.

1. How are things at LAP? Is the steel industry keeping you busy?

Yes, absolutely. Many customers are now investing heavily in the quality assurance of their products. Avoiding rejects is an important issue. We are, of course, pleased about this trend. We receive many enquiries from steel-producing companies all over the world about our laser measurement systems. With the foundation of LAP Measurement Technology GmbH in 2021, LAP is very well positioned to serve our markets even more flexibly in the future.

2. How do you assess the current situation of the global steel industry?

One of the overarching themes that the steel industry is currently dealing with is the question of how to make steel ‘greener’. Rising oil and gas prices have made this question even more urgent, with many steel producers turning to alternatives such as solar energy or hydropower. The switch to greener energy sources will require a major effort if the steel industry is to become climate-neutral by 2050.

3. In which sector of the steel industry does LAP mostly conduct its business?

LAP’s laser-based non-contact measurement systems are the leading solution for quality assurance and process optimisation in rolling mills. We cover the entire rolling process and offer laser technology for highprecision measurement of diameter, ovality and surface defects of complex and different steel profiles: wire rods, bars, rebars and tubes. This enables us to help steel manufacturers deliver the required quality and avoid scrap. We are a pioneer in this field and have been at the forefront for nearly 40 years.

4. Where in the world are you currently busiest?

We supply leading steel producers around the world with our systems. We are currently most active in Europe and Asia, closely followed by the USA. We see high growth potential for all three markets in 2023.

5. Can you discuss any major steel contracts you are currently working on?

We have recently received orders for a CONTOUR CHECK SHAPE 50 system in the Middle East region and a CC SHAPE 250 in Europe. The laser light-sectioning systems enable 3D measurement of length profiles with an accuracy of up to ±100μm.

6. Where does LAP stand on the aluminium versus steel argument?

As we are active in both fields of business, we don’t see any areas for competition here.

7. What are your views on Industry 4.0 and steelmaking and how, if at all, is LAP using it?

This is an important topic. Digitalisation continues to advance. Steel producers want to exploit the full potential of their data to optimise their production processes. This is where our Industry 4.0 software solution comes in. The SMART CORE PRO software provides users of CONTOUR CHECK SHAPE systems with all the geometry data relevant to the rolling process, which can be applied in real time directly in the process line as well as in the data structures of an Industry 4.0 production environment.

8. How quickly has the steel industry responded to ‘green politics’ in terms of making the production process more environmentally friendly and are they succeeding or fighting a losing battle?

The steel industry has to invest a lot of money without making higher profits. Because there has been a lot of pressure in the past, most manufacturers now must start switching to cleaner production processes. This is something they will have to do for the next 20 to 30 years.

9. In your dealings with steel producers, are you finding that they are looking to companies like LAP to offer them solutions in terms of energy efficiency and sustainability? If so, what can you offer them?

to right: Fabian Beck, director global sales, and Volker Gödecke, sales manager, LAP Measurement Technology GmbH.

In rolling mills, the demands on the dimensional accuracy of the rolled products are increasing and defects in the rolling process or in the product should be detected before rejects are produced. We offer measuring systems to avoid rejects, to shorten the adjustment time after a roll change and to better qualify profile deviations and surface

*Director of global sales, ** sales manager, LAP Measurement Technology GmbH

From left

defects of the end product. These are all measures to increase process efficiency and thus reduce costs and the use of resources.

LAP can draw on the experience of more than 400 measuring systems installed worldwide.

10. Where does LAP lead the field in terms of steel production technology?

We can justifiably claim that LAP is a leader in the detection of surface defects. With our high-precision laser measuring systems and intelligent evaluation software, we are able to detect the smallest surface defects such as scale scars, scratches and roll breaks immediately during production. The clear, automatic classification of rolling defects allows their causes to be eliminated in a targeted manner. In addition, the system detects and analyses shape deviations caused, for example, by roll misalignment and wear or surface defects.

11. How do you view LAP’s development over the short-tomedium term in relation to the global steel industry?

We expect the business to continue to grow. As the demand for quality assurance systems increases, we are also continuously developing our systems to meet market needs and keep pace with increasing requirements.

12. What is LAP’s experience of the Chinese steel industry?

LAP is an established player with many years of market experience in China. To be close to our Chinese customers, we have been present since 2002 with a representative office and since 2013 with a subsidiary

in Shanghai as well as local partners. The market for laser measurement systems is growing faster in China than elsewhere. Due to the increasing demand for quality monitoring systems, we expect continued dynamic growth.

13. Where do you see most innovation in terms of production technologies – primary, secondary or more downstream?

As we are not involved in the upstream processes with our systems, this is difficult to assess. However, innovations in the upstream process steps have an impact on the requirements for our products. We meet these requirements by developing our hardware and evaluation software and implementing new evaluation methods.

14. How optimistic are you for the global steel industry going forward and what challenges face global producers in the short-to-medium term?

Despite the global upheavals, we remain

very optimistic for our sector. We are certain that the steel industry will continue to invest in process optimisation and quality assurance solutions in the coming years.

15. What exhibitions and conferences will LAP be attending over the next six months?

This year, we have presented, and are scheduled to present at a number of regional and international industry events. We look forward to METEC and AISTech in 2023. We also speak at trade conferences where we seek direct contact with the industry and our customers.

16. LAP is headquartered in Germany but what’s happening steel-wise in the country?

Besides environmental aspects such as CO2 neutrality and decarbonization, product quality continues to play a major role. To remain competitive in the European market, many steel producers are investing in technologies to improve the rolling process in the finishing area. The focus is on less scrap and higher quality.

17. Apart from strong coffee, what keeps you awake at night?

What every sales representative dreams of: more customers, more commissions….

18. If you possessed a superpower, how would you use it to improve the global steel industry?

With our high-precision measurement systems, we already have a ‘superpower’ that helps steel companies increase their process efficiency. But if we could have any other superpower for ourselves, we would use it to develop a solution for energy efficiency. �

Ironmaking at Scunthorpe Part 3. 1939 to present day

In the final article in this series, Tim Smith* recounts iron and steelmaking at Scunthorpe up to the present day. Part 2 was published in the October issue and Part 1 in September.

WE left Part 2 with three integrated iron and steel companies in the Scunthorpe area, Appleby-Frodingham, Redbourn and Lysaght, these having been formed by amalgamations of the original six companies established between 1860 and 1912.

Unlike the inter-war period when all three companies invested heavily, minimal expansion took place during WWII, but all three works were fortunate in receiving little damage from enemy action.

Post war, Appleby-Frodingham further developed its new site, South Ironworks, where, in 1939, it had built the first two ‘Queen’ blast furnaces, Mary and Bess, along with new coke ovens and sinter strands.

In 1947, two 350 ton basic open-hearth furnaces were commissioned along with a 600 ton active mixer. At the Frodingham site, the mills were modernised, and a new 42-inch (1m) mill was constructed which started up in 1948. At the Appleby plate-mills, modernisation enabled stainless steel to be rolled. It was soon realised that, despite the two larger ‘Queen’ furnaces, the output of all eight furnaces could not match the installed steelmaking capacity. To increase output from the existing furnaces, it was concluded that the burden charged had to be further improved and a project named ‘Seraphim’ was launched to achieve this. The ore mix was 60% Frodingham ironstone – a high lime, low iron (25%Fe) ore, 36% Northampton Sands – a salicaceous ore to counter the lime, and just 4% imported iron-rich ore. The second two ‘Queen’ blast furnaces, Anne and Victoria, followed in 1954, providing four 8m hearth furnaces. A further ore preparation plant to produce sinter suitable for 100% charging of sinter to all four Queens was

also installed.

Demolition of the old Frodingham works took place to clear the way to build the United Steel Structural Company and demolition of the North Ironworks also commenced, reducing the number of furnaces to the four Queens.

In 1951, the then Labour government nationalised UK’s steel industry, to form the Iron and Steel Corporation. Little change in investment was forthcoming. Privatisation returned just two years later when a Conservative government came to power. As we will see, this political interference was again to be repeated in the 1960s and 1980s.

Redbourn, as part of Richard Thomas and Baldwins, remained in public ownership. The company modernised its three existing blast furnaces and added a two-strand pig casting line. A new coke battery was also built.

At Lysaght, to meet the anticipated demand for high-grade and special steels, new coke ovens, a blast furnace, and a new steel plant were started in 1950 and completed in 1953, bringing steelmaking capacity to 600kt/yr.

Between 1955 and 1960, ApplebyFrodingham started to experiment with speeding up open-hearth steelmaking by injecting oxygen. Known as the ‘Ajax’ process, three furnaces were modified to use oxygen by 1960. This required the building of a tonnage oxygen plant with a 100 ton storage capacity. The size of the slabbing-mill was also increased, as was that of the section-mill where a new 52in (1.32m) universal beam mill was installed for beam rolling.

By 1959 it was recognised that, using increasingly better sinter in the four Queens and oxygen in the open hearth furnaces,

steelmaking output could be increased. The ‘Temper’ project was launched to increase ingot output to 1.9 Mt/yr. An additional ore preparation plant was built, seven open hearth furnaces were converted to use oxygen, and a four-strand continuous caster was built to produce nine-inch (228mm) billet. A billet mill was added along with a four-strand rod and bar mill. The work was completed by 1965.

At Lysaght, the 1950s saw attempts to speed up open hearth steelmaking with trials using higher fuel ratios and injection of oxygen both to improve combustion and to speed refining. Furnaces were relined with basic refractories to enable higher temperature operation. By the early 1960s steel production had reached close to 700kt/yr. Increasing output to 900kt/ yr was planned and it was decided that using the relatively new technology of the basic oxygen steelmaking (BOS) converter, first introduced in Austria in 1954, would achieve this. A two-converter steel shop was built and the first heat took place in September 1964. An output of 500kt/yr was soon achieved with just one vessel. It was realised that using both vessels simultaneously could enable an output of 1 Mt/yr to be reached. To this end, a 1kt inactive mixer was installed. Computers were introduced to aid analysis and control

*Consulting editor, Steel Times International and a member of the Historical Metallurgy Society

Pitside in the open hearth shop at Redbourn

of this rapid steelmaking process, where a heat was completed in 20 minutes compared with many hours, even after oxygen enrichment, in the open-hearth furnaces.

Redbourn was embarking on its third expansion plan to bring output up to 1Mt/ yr. Additional coke-ovens were completed in 1960 and the ingot stripping bay was enlarged. In 1962, a continuous billet mill and modern handling equipment were installed and further improvements continued up to 1967.

That year, a Labour government was back in power and re-nationalised the UK’s steel industry. The three Scunthorpe companies became part of the Midland Group of the British Steel Corporation. In 1970, the Scunthorpe companies were re-allocated to the General Steels Division which also contained the Lancashire mills at Warrington and Irlam.

Nationalisation saw the launch of the ‘Anchor’ project for modernisation of steelmaking and finishing. New ore reception and blending facilities were built and high-grade foreign imported ore replaced Northampton sands in 1974. Local ore now accounted for just 33% of the low phosphorus burden.

At Appleby-Frodingham, three 300-ton BOS converters replaced all open-hearth steelmaking and a similar replacement was implemented at Redbourn. Rolling at Redbourn was modernised with a new mill for rolling billet, a medium section mill and a two-strand continuous slab caster. Steel

EVENT TIMELINE

1967: UK steel companies nationalised, forming British Steel Corporation

1988: UK steel companies privatised Scunthorpe part of British Steel plc

1999: BS plc merged with Dutch Hoogovens to form Corus

2007: Corus bought by Tata Steel of India

2016: Tata sells Scunthorpe works to Greybull Capital – Renamed British Steel – Turnover £1.2bn/yr

2018: Losses mounting £19M/yr

May 2019: British Steel in liquidation with debt of £880M

June 2019: Turkish pension finance Ataer preferred bidder but fails to agree terms

November 2019: Chinese Jingye Group signs agreement to buy for £70M & invest £1.2bn over 10 years Completion end of Feb 2020

for blooms, billets and sections remained ingot cast, with the slab caster supplying the plate mill.

The ore terminal at Immingham on the Humber was enlarged to accept bulk ore carriers. Special trains carried 100kt of

imported ore per week to the steelworks.

Iron output from the four Queens at Appleby-Frodingham and three smaller furnaces at Redbourn could produce 93kt a week to supply the BOS converters at all three steel plants, which together could convert the iron at a rate of 300 tons per minute.

Coke was supplied from all three former companies and a new coke plant was built at Dawes Lane, using part of the site previously occupied by the North Works of Appleby-Frodingham. Three batteries of 25 ovens each could produce 17kt of coke per week.

By 1974, the total production capacity of the Scunthorpe mills was 5Mt/yr.

Today, the South Works comprises the present Scunthorpe steelworks with a capacity of 2.75Mt/yr. UK steel companies were again privatised in 1988 by a Conservative government with Scunthorpe becoming British Steel, a name it uses today but, following re-privatisation again in 1988, there were several iterations of ownership as summarised in the side bar.

Today, British Steel at Scunthorpe produces long products for construction, rails for high speed and conventional rail track, special profiles, wire rod and a variety of semi-finished products.

In addition to the Scunthorpe site, it rolls special profiles at Skinningrove, construction steels at Teesside and wire rod and wire at Alblasserdam, in the Netherlands. It also operates an extensive international sales network.

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