U.S. ITmk3 Plant Increases Operation Ratio to 500,000 Tonnes per Year

The first plant of ITmk3 (the new steel making process) is raising operating rate step by step. The plant is jointly operated by Kobe Steel and Steel Dynamics (SDI) in Minnesota, the U.S.A. The production is expected to reach 500,000 tonnes per year in the last half of 2011.

The plant started commercial operation on January 12, 2010. The plant has optimized equipments and processes to raise the operating rate. Productivity has improved to 80% per hour and 85% against the operating time. The current shipment is about 20,000 tonnes per month.

The plant produces high quality iron nugget, which contains iron almost as much as pig iron produced by blast furnace. Iron nugget is used by SDI’s electric furnace plant. SDI highly evaluates quality and solubility of iron nugget.

The plant confirmed smooth performance of ITmk3 process since when there was no process problem such as inner reaction of rotary hearth furnace (RHF) so far. Meanwhile, ITmk3 plant is requiring additional time to start-up against the initial schedule due to facility conditioning. Coal conveyer has a problem and disturbs continuous operation of the process. The plant will introduce a new conveyer and increases operation ratio to 500,000 tonnes per year in the last half of 2011.

ITmk3 was developed by Kobe Steel, that can produce high quality iron nugget in short time from low quality iron ore and fuel coal. The process can reduce CO2 emission by about 20% compared with blast furnace process.