December 2011 - SIMA

MXCOL ® : A BREAKTHROUGH IN COAL-BASEDDIRECT REDUCTION FOR INDIAMidrex Technologies, Inc., USAINTRODUCTIONAs one of the world’s mostDecember-2011 growingeconomies, India has a strong steel demand forinfrastructure, construction, and consumer goods.From 1998-2010, its steel demand grew at ninepercent per year. To feed this demand, steelproduction has grown from less than 10 million tons(Mt) in 1980 to nearly 67 Mt in 2010, as shown inFigure 1.Figure 1India Steel and DRI ProductionSources: WorldSteel and Midrex TechnologiesThere are ambitious plans to increase the country’ssteel production, with expansion plans to reach 200-250 Mt by 2020.Over 60 percent of India’s steel is currently producedin electric furnaces. Given the lack of domestic scrapand the good availability of natural resources like ironore, coal and natural gas, direct reduction hasprovided much of the iron units required for ElectricArc Furnace (EAF) steel production growth. DirectReduced Iron (DRI) production has increasedtremendously since 1980, from essentially zero to23.4 Mt in 2010, as shown in Figure 1. Of the totalDRI production in 2010, 74 percent was producedfrom coal and 26 percent from natural gas. India isnow the world’s largest producer of DRI.Currently, there are two primary means of DRIproduction in India: small-scale rotary kilns using localcoal and iron ore lump, and large-scale shaft furnaceplants using natural gas and iron oxide pellets andlump. In recent years, almost all the growth in DRIproduction has been due to the installation of rotarykiln facilities and there are now over 350 of theseplants. Many are small-scale and it is believed thatover 100 have capacities from 10,000-20,000 tpy.There are only seven natural gas-fired shaft furnaceplants (including six MIDREX ®Direct ReductionModules), but they produce 1/4 of the total DRI inIndia.Future Steelmaking GrowthFor India to grow its steel production significantly,what are the options? Direct reduction using coalfiredrotary kilns or natural gas-fired shaft furnacesare logical choices. Rotary kiln DRI capacity has beeninstalled because it makes use of domestic iron oreand coal, but there is a limit to the growth of thistechnology because rotary kilns cannot be built largerthan about 200,000 tpy. Thus, it is probably notfeasible to build a steel mill to produce one milliontons per year or more via this route. Also, there areproduct quality issues because of the use of lumpore and coal with high levels of ash and sulfur. Directreduction plants using natural gas would be an idealchoice, but there is little additional natural gasavailable for further expansion.Another possibility is the installation of conventionalblast furnace/basic oxygen furnace technology, butthis requires the importation of coking coal or coke,since only about five percent of India’s coal reservesare coking quality. Also, there may be environmentalissues and the capital cost can be high.MXCOL ® : USE OF SYNGAS FROM COAL IN AMIDREX ® PLANTAn alternative option generating significant interestin India and elsewhere is MXCOL, which is the useof synthetic gas (syngas) made from coal incombination with a MIDREX ® Direct Reduction Plant.DECEMBER-2011/7