Adaptation of EAF Operations for Unconventional Raw Materials

The traditional raw material of the EAF is ferrous scrap. However, the availability of scrap in Russia has been gradually decreasing to the point where Russia has gone from being the worlds largest scrap exporter in 2005 to one of the smallest in 2012. Russia has the largest proven reserves of natural gas in the world, which makes the production of DRI attractive. These facts have been clearly recognized in advance since there are merchant DRI and pig iron plants already operating in Russia. Thus, approximately 2.5 Mt/a of DRI (HBI) and 2.1 Mt/a of pig iron are on the Russian market. There are certain technical advantages to using pig iron and DRI in the EAF. Furnaces charging large amounts of DRI and pig iron also need to be operated differently from the traditional scrap based EAF. The use of oxygen in these operations is significantly different than in the traditional EAF that charges 100% scrap. In Russia, there are examples of integrated steel plants based on DRI production and electric arc furnace to produce steel.