China steel mills seeking to raise DRI output

Chinese steel mills are adopting new technologies to increase DRI production, with an aim to reduce emissions and costs.

Non-blast furnace iron making technologies in China have been developing at a slow pace and lag international peers. Average annual DRI output in China over the last few years has been under 600,000t.

Some projects have been pursued by steelmakers over the past few years to produce DRI. Shandong Molong has used the HiSmelt process since 2017 to produce DRI which reduces emissions of SOx by 90%, NOx by 40% and CO2 by 20%. China Shanxi Metallurgy Technology has a 300,000 mtpa DRI project using MME's "PERED" technology which is a coal gas-based DRI process that uses a shaft furnace.

The Jianlong steel group has a 300,000 mtpa high-purity cast iron project that uses the smelting reduction process to produce high and ultra-high purity special pig iron. The process cuts out polluting work such as sintering, pelletizing, coking and produces high purity metal. The production cost is lower by RMB 500/t compared with that of blast furnaces and products are used in high-end sectors such as aerospace, petrochemical etc.

Other technologies such as Corex and RHF are also being tried out by various steel mills. The tunnel kiln mode of DRI production will be gradually phased out due to its high energy consumption, high emissions rate and instability in product quality.

Photo-Credit - World Steel