In spite of the most serious U.S. and global economic crisis in decades, the steel industry is poised for recovery -- when demand picks up, James L. Wainscott, American Iron and Steel Institute Chairman (AISI) Chairman, and chairman, president and CEO of AK Steel Corporation, said at the Institute’s annual meeting. With the meeting’s theme, Global Challenges – Global Solutions, leaders of the North American steel industry are meeting here to discuss the state of the global steel sector, market outlooks and challenges, opportunities that will shape the industry’s future and market trends that will be important to steel in the next 12 to 24 months.
“It is important to understand that this recession is not something unique to America or to the North American steel sector,” Wainscott noted. “It is a global recession and our recovery is tied, at least in part, to economic recovery across the world.” He continued, “While we are hopeful that the markets we serve are at, or very near, the trough of the recession, for meaningful economic growth, we’re going to need to see several things: 1) Improved credit availability, 2) The return of consumer confidence, and 3) Rational government policy that serves as a catalyst for growth in American manufacturing and American jobs.”
Wainscott said AISI and its member companies believe that as federal agencies gear-up to use the stimulus funds that have been approved, “they need to ensure that federally-funded projects use American-made iron, steel and other manufactured products, if they are readily available and competitive. This in turn will be beneficial not just to the steel industry but also for the economy to turn the corner as American families and communities depend on a strong manufacturing base to improve quality of life and to create high-paying jobs.”
A recent Department of Transportation study reported that every $1 billion invested in federal highways supports nearly 35,000 American jobs. And a recent economists’ report states that a concerted domestic procurement program could increase U.S. manufacturing job creation by 33 percent while ensuring that taxpayer dollars actually go directly to job creation.
Wainscott raised two main policy issues in his speech – climate change and trade – that have a phenomenal impact on the economy and the steel industry.
“Our industry is firmly committed to building a sustainable future for generations of Americans to come. But our ability to stay competitive in the world economy means we need fair and strong trade and climate laws that are rigorously enforced. In a market open to imports, such as ours, any legislation that undermines the competitiveness of U.S. mills will encourage steel production to leave this market in favor of markets with lower environmental standards,” he said, which would hurt both the U.S. economy and the environment.
He noted that any U.S. climate change regulations involving the steel industry must also provide that similar measures be taken by other major steel-producing countries such as China.
“It is a known fact that countries like China will not adopt measures to curb CO2 emissions as aggressively as we will, which will give them and other importers a tremendous competitive advantage. That is, unless U.S. climate policy provides offsets and border adjustment mechanisms to account for the cost burden placed on U.S. companies,” he emphasized.
America’s steel industry has achieved sizable CO2 reductions and the processes are limited by the laws of physics regarding further energy and CO2 reductions. In contrast, a study released by the Alliance for American Manufacturing shows that China is now responsible for at least 50 percentof total global steelmaking CO2 emissions generated, he said.
“It’s clear to me that, if we don’t get our climate policy right, we face the prospect of ceding another huge segment of America’s industrial prowess to the BRIC countries – Brazil, Russia, India and China. And that would mean further loss of our manufacturing jobs,” said Wainscott.
On trade issues, he emphasized the need for “enforcing trade laws and for our government to stand-up for our nation’s assets – our workers and manufacturing sector.”
“The issue of China’s rampant currency manipulation cannot be ignored. The Chinese government does not play by the rules when it illegally subsidizes its industry and controls its currency's exchange rate,” Wainscott added. “These actions enable China to evade market forces and falsely gain a 40 percent competitive advantage over U.S.-manufactured goods, which has greatly contributed to America's $256 billion trade deficit with China,” he said.
In a call to action, Wainscott urged Congress to enact legislation that treats China’s currency manipulation as a subsidy under our trade remedy laws.
Concluding his speech on a positive note, Wainscott said that despite these challenges, he is optimistic for the future of the steel industry. “My reason for optimism lies in the dynamic spirit of a great workforce, innovative products and an amazing material. We’ve all been through adverse times before and have emerged stronger.”
AISI serves as the voice of the North American steel industry in the public policy arena and advances the case for steel in the marketplace as the preferred material of choice. AISI also plays a lead role in the development and application of new steels and steelmaking technology. AISI is comprised of 24 member companies, including integrated and electric furnace steelmakers, and 138 associate and affiliate members who are suppliers to or customers of the steel industry. AISI's member companies represent approximately 75 percent of both U.S. and North American steel capacity. For more news about steel and its applications,
from： steel.org
2009/05/10
Iron Ore Processing for the Blast Furnace
The following describes operations at the National Steel Pellet Company, an iron ore mining and processing facility located on the Mesabi Iron Range of Minnesota.
Creating steel from low-grade iron ore requires a long process of mining, crushing, separating, concentrating, mixing, pelletizing, and shipping. The process of mining low-grade iron ore, or taconite, requires massive resources. Heavy industrial mining equipment, expansive mines, and a skilled labor pool are all required. The equipment used includes diamond-bit rotary drills, hydraulic shovels and loaders, water wagons, production trucks and heavy-duty conveyors.
National Steel Pellet Company’s plant is capable of producing 5.35 million tons of pellets each year. It employs approximately 500 workers.
Mining Iron Ore
Mining iron ore begins at ground level. Taconite is identified by diamond drilling core samples on a grid hundreds of feet into the earth. Taconite rock comprises about 28 percent iron; the rest is sand or silica. These samples are analyzed and categorized so that mining engineers can accurately develop a mine plan.
To uncover taconite reserves, the mine area is first "stripped" of the overburden or glacial drift, comprised primarily of rock, clay and gravel. The overburden is loaded by large hydraulic shovels into production trucks, which haul it to contour dumps. These dumps are environmentally designed to match the surrounding area.
Once the taconite rock is exposed, large drilling rigs drill blast holes 16" in diameter by 40' deep, in some cases. Nearly 400 of these holes are drilled in a blast pattern. Before the blast, the holes are filled with a special mixture of blasting agents. Once prepared, the mine site is cleared of workers and equipment, and the blast is detonated. Each of the holes is detonated just a millisecond apart, resulting in a pile of crude taconite that is broken apart to a minus 6' x 6' size.
After blasting, hydraulic face shovels and larger loaders load the taconite into 205-ton or 240-ton production trucks, which haul it to crushers. The taconite is ground to a fine powder and mixed with water. A series of magnets is run over the mixture. The magnets grab the iron particles and the rest is discarded. For every ton of iron retained, two tons of waste, or tailings, are discarded.
Crushing the Ore
The crude taconite is delivered to large gyrator crushers, where chunks as large as five feet are reduced to six inches or less. More than 6,000 tons of taconite can be crushed in one hour.
The crushed material is transferred by belt to an ore storage building, which holds up to 220,000 tons of taconite. An apron feeder sends the ore to the concentrator building for grinding, separating, and concentrating.
Concentrating
The crude taconite is now roughly the size of a football or smaller. A series of conveyor belts continuously feed the ore into ten large 27-foot-diameter, semi-autogenous primary grinding mills. Water is added at this point to transport it (94 percent of the water is recycled, while the rest is lost through evaporation).
Each primary mill contains several 4" steel balls that grind the ore as the mills turn. When the ore is reduced to 3/4" or less, it moves out of the mill in a slurry solution. The mill discharge is screened at 1/4" on trommel screens attached to the mill. Ore smaller than 1/4" is pumped in slurry solution to the wet cobber magnetic separator, which begins the process of separating the iron from the non-iron material. The magnetic iron ore is then laundered in two slurry surge tanks while the non-magnetics (silica/sand) go to the tailings disposal area.
Most of the material continues to be finely ground in one of five secondary ball mills, which are powered by electric motors ranging from 2,500 hp to 4,000 hp and are charged with 1-1/2" chrome grinding balls. Fine grinding is achieved using these smaller mills, bringing the ore to a similar grind as that found in face powder. The screen undersize is then moved to hydroseparators, where silica is floated off the top.
The hydroseparator underflow is pumped to the finisher magnetic separators. Once again, the magnetic separators grab the iron and discard the silica and sand. Thus, the ore is "concentrated" by removing the waste materials. The concentrate from the separators is pumped to fine screening.
The oversize material is returned to the balls mills, while the undersize (with the most impurities removed) becomes the final concentrate. Waste from the circuit goes to the tailings basin and the final concentrate travels to thickeners located in the pellet plant. The underflow from the thickeners is pumped to a storage tank and then to disc filters for dewatering.
The product is called “filter cake”, and is now ready for mixing with the binding agent.
Mixing with the Binding Agents
Once the filter cake is complete, it is deposited into a surge bin. It then travels onto a feeder belt and from there to a conveyor where bentonite, a bonding agent, is added. Bentonite is a clay from Wyoming used to help iron ore concentrate stick together when rolled into pellets. About 16 pounds of Bentonite are added to every ton of iron ore concentrate.
Small amounts of limestone (1%) are also added and mixed with the concentrate at this point. Limestone is added to meet the requirements of steel customers in the blast furnace process.
The iron ore concentrate is now mixed and ready for the pelletizing process.
Pelletizing
A pellet plant contains a series of balling drums where the iron ore concentrate is formed into soft pellets, in much the same manner that one rolls a snowball, to make a pellet about the size of a marble (between 1/4" and 1/2"). Pellets are screened to meet the size specification, with undersized or oversized pellets crushed and returned to the balling drums.
The soft pellets are then delivered to the roller feeder for final removal of the fines, which are also returned to the balling circuits. Now the soft pellets, correctly sized, are delivered to the traveling grate furnace for further drying and preheating. The grate is fired by natural gas.
From this point, the pellets are charged into the large rotary kiln where they are heat-hardened at 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit. The pellets are discharged into the revolving cooler and then moved to the pellet screening plant, onto the pellet loadout system. The whole process consumes energy in the form of electricity and natural gas. Over the past several years, millions of dollars have been spent to improve energy efficiency and to recoup waste heat and re-use it in the process. These efforts have significantly reduced expenditures on energy.
The pelletizing process has now been completed. The pellets are run through a final screening to remove those not meeting size specifications or those that are chipped or broken into fines. Pellets that meet the necessary standards are conveyed to the pellet stockpile, which holds about 30,000 tons.
Pellet Loadout and Shipping
The pellets are now ready for shipping by train to customers or to ore docks. They are sent to blast furnaces and steel mills, where they will be turned into finished steel.
A trainload of iron ore pellets bound for the blast furnace
National Steel Pellet Company’s iron ore pellets have the following characteristics (FOB Mine):
Total Iron: 65.85% Silica (SiO2): 4.5% Lime (CaO): 0.68% Phosphorous: 0.010
Size: %+1/4” 96.5% (after tumble) Compression Strength: 560 pounds
from: http://www.steel.org
Creating steel from low-grade iron ore requires a long process of mining, crushing, separating, concentrating, mixing, pelletizing, and shipping. The process of mining low-grade iron ore, or taconite, requires massive resources. Heavy industrial mining equipment, expansive mines, and a skilled labor pool are all required. The equipment used includes diamond-bit rotary drills, hydraulic shovels and loaders, water wagons, production trucks and heavy-duty conveyors.
National Steel Pellet Company’s plant is capable of producing 5.35 million tons of pellets each year. It employs approximately 500 workers.
Mining Iron Ore
Mining iron ore begins at ground level. Taconite is identified by diamond drilling core samples on a grid hundreds of feet into the earth. Taconite rock comprises about 28 percent iron; the rest is sand or silica. These samples are analyzed and categorized so that mining engineers can accurately develop a mine plan.
To uncover taconite reserves, the mine area is first "stripped" of the overburden or glacial drift, comprised primarily of rock, clay and gravel. The overburden is loaded by large hydraulic shovels into production trucks, which haul it to contour dumps. These dumps are environmentally designed to match the surrounding area.
Once the taconite rock is exposed, large drilling rigs drill blast holes 16" in diameter by 40' deep, in some cases. Nearly 400 of these holes are drilled in a blast pattern. Before the blast, the holes are filled with a special mixture of blasting agents. Once prepared, the mine site is cleared of workers and equipment, and the blast is detonated. Each of the holes is detonated just a millisecond apart, resulting in a pile of crude taconite that is broken apart to a minus 6' x 6' size.
After blasting, hydraulic face shovels and larger loaders load the taconite into 205-ton or 240-ton production trucks, which haul it to crushers. The taconite is ground to a fine powder and mixed with water. A series of magnets is run over the mixture. The magnets grab the iron particles and the rest is discarded. For every ton of iron retained, two tons of waste, or tailings, are discarded.
Crushing the Ore
The crude taconite is delivered to large gyrator crushers, where chunks as large as five feet are reduced to six inches or less. More than 6,000 tons of taconite can be crushed in one hour.
The crushed material is transferred by belt to an ore storage building, which holds up to 220,000 tons of taconite. An apron feeder sends the ore to the concentrator building for grinding, separating, and concentrating.
Concentrating
The crude taconite is now roughly the size of a football or smaller. A series of conveyor belts continuously feed the ore into ten large 27-foot-diameter, semi-autogenous primary grinding mills. Water is added at this point to transport it (94 percent of the water is recycled, while the rest is lost through evaporation).
Each primary mill contains several 4" steel balls that grind the ore as the mills turn. When the ore is reduced to 3/4" or less, it moves out of the mill in a slurry solution. The mill discharge is screened at 1/4" on trommel screens attached to the mill. Ore smaller than 1/4" is pumped in slurry solution to the wet cobber magnetic separator, which begins the process of separating the iron from the non-iron material. The magnetic iron ore is then laundered in two slurry surge tanks while the non-magnetics (silica/sand) go to the tailings disposal area.
Most of the material continues to be finely ground in one of five secondary ball mills, which are powered by electric motors ranging from 2,500 hp to 4,000 hp and are charged with 1-1/2" chrome grinding balls. Fine grinding is achieved using these smaller mills, bringing the ore to a similar grind as that found in face powder. The screen undersize is then moved to hydroseparators, where silica is floated off the top.
The hydroseparator underflow is pumped to the finisher magnetic separators. Once again, the magnetic separators grab the iron and discard the silica and sand. Thus, the ore is "concentrated" by removing the waste materials. The concentrate from the separators is pumped to fine screening.
The oversize material is returned to the balls mills, while the undersize (with the most impurities removed) becomes the final concentrate. Waste from the circuit goes to the tailings basin and the final concentrate travels to thickeners located in the pellet plant. The underflow from the thickeners is pumped to a storage tank and then to disc filters for dewatering.
The product is called “filter cake”, and is now ready for mixing with the binding agent.
Mixing with the Binding Agents
Once the filter cake is complete, it is deposited into a surge bin. It then travels onto a feeder belt and from there to a conveyor where bentonite, a bonding agent, is added. Bentonite is a clay from Wyoming used to help iron ore concentrate stick together when rolled into pellets. About 16 pounds of Bentonite are added to every ton of iron ore concentrate.
Small amounts of limestone (1%) are also added and mixed with the concentrate at this point. Limestone is added to meet the requirements of steel customers in the blast furnace process.
The iron ore concentrate is now mixed and ready for the pelletizing process.
Pelletizing
A pellet plant contains a series of balling drums where the iron ore concentrate is formed into soft pellets, in much the same manner that one rolls a snowball, to make a pellet about the size of a marble (between 1/4" and 1/2"). Pellets are screened to meet the size specification, with undersized or oversized pellets crushed and returned to the balling drums.
The soft pellets are then delivered to the roller feeder for final removal of the fines, which are also returned to the balling circuits. Now the soft pellets, correctly sized, are delivered to the traveling grate furnace for further drying and preheating. The grate is fired by natural gas.
From this point, the pellets are charged into the large rotary kiln where they are heat-hardened at 2,400 degrees Fahrenheit. The pellets are discharged into the revolving cooler and then moved to the pellet screening plant, onto the pellet loadout system. The whole process consumes energy in the form of electricity and natural gas. Over the past several years, millions of dollars have been spent to improve energy efficiency and to recoup waste heat and re-use it in the process. These efforts have significantly reduced expenditures on energy.
The pelletizing process has now been completed. The pellets are run through a final screening to remove those not meeting size specifications or those that are chipped or broken into fines. Pellets that meet the necessary standards are conveyed to the pellet stockpile, which holds about 30,000 tons.
Pellet Loadout and Shipping
The pellets are now ready for shipping by train to customers or to ore docks. They are sent to blast furnaces and steel mills, where they will be turned into finished steel.
A trainload of iron ore pellets bound for the blast furnace
National Steel Pellet Company’s iron ore pellets have the following characteristics (FOB Mine):
Total Iron: 65.85% Silica (SiO2): 4.5% Lime (CaO): 0.68% Phosphorous: 0.010
Size: %+1/4” 96.5% (after tumble) Compression Strength: 560 pounds
from: http://www.steel.org
2009/05/06
TATA STEEL PLANS TO RESTRUCTURE CORUS'EUROPE OPERATIONS
By ceoaisra, Section AISRA NEWS
Posted on Mon May 04, 2009 at 03:50:31 AM EST
The global slump in steel prices and demand has prompted Tata Steel to consider restructuring the continental European operations of Corus, the Anglo-Dutch steel major it acquired in 2007 for $12 billion. The focus of the review is Corns' plants in Spain, France and the Netherlands, which could include selling these units if the need arises. Tata Steel's consolidated profits fell 48 per cent to Rs 732 crore in the quarter ended December, after Corus faced a drop in sales (the company does not give Corus' results separately). Corus, which has an annual production capacity of 20 million tonnes, has plants in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, France and Belgium. This week, the company suffered a setback after an Italian buyer, Marcegaglia, backed out from a deal to buy its Teesside plant in northern England, saying the $480 million deal would financially stretch the company. An e-mail sent to the company spokesperson on Wednesday did not elicit a response. To limit losses, Corus has already decided to divest in downstream businesses. Briand Investments, an affiliate of UK-based investment group Klesch, had agreed to acquire Corus' aluminium smelters at Voerde in Germany and Delfcijl in the Netherlands. The company has also closed the three service centres in the UK. As part of restructuring its building systems division, it has closed units in south Wales and relocated the facilities to Shot-ton in north-east England. Tata Steel, which has about $9 billion debt in its books, is also looking to roll over the $4 billion of debt it raised to buy Corus. Sources said the company planned to extend the loan repayment period for three years to help Corus weather the downturn. Tata Steel has to repay $795 million in 2009-10 and $1.3 billion in 2010-11; however, the company is free from repayment until December 2009. "The company may use part its $1.9 billion reserves for the loan repayment, but that will adversely affect its expansion plans in India. The company requires $1.2 billion for its capital expenditure during this fiscal," tsaid a Mumbai-based analyst. Corus, the analyst added, has already cut 40 per cent of its production after the demand slump, so cash flows from Europe also will be lower. "The restricted cash flow will affect Corus' plans to acquire iron ore and coking coal mines for raw material security," said a Mumbai-based analyst.The Tata Steel and Corus managements have already gone through some top-level changes after Philippe Varin resigned as chief executive to head French-car maker PSA Peugeot Citroen. Kirby Adams, former chief executive of Blue Scope Steel in Australia, has succeeded Varin.
Posted on Mon May 04, 2009 at 03:50:31 AM EST
The global slump in steel prices and demand has prompted Tata Steel to consider restructuring the continental European operations of Corus, the Anglo-Dutch steel major it acquired in 2007 for $12 billion. The focus of the review is Corns' plants in Spain, France and the Netherlands, which could include selling these units if the need arises. Tata Steel's consolidated profits fell 48 per cent to Rs 732 crore in the quarter ended December, after Corus faced a drop in sales (the company does not give Corus' results separately). Corus, which has an annual production capacity of 20 million tonnes, has plants in the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, France and Belgium. This week, the company suffered a setback after an Italian buyer, Marcegaglia, backed out from a deal to buy its Teesside plant in northern England, saying the $480 million deal would financially stretch the company. An e-mail sent to the company spokesperson on Wednesday did not elicit a response. To limit losses, Corus has already decided to divest in downstream businesses. Briand Investments, an affiliate of UK-based investment group Klesch, had agreed to acquire Corus' aluminium smelters at Voerde in Germany and Delfcijl in the Netherlands. The company has also closed the three service centres in the UK. As part of restructuring its building systems division, it has closed units in south Wales and relocated the facilities to Shot-ton in north-east England. Tata Steel, which has about $9 billion debt in its books, is also looking to roll over the $4 billion of debt it raised to buy Corus. Sources said the company planned to extend the loan repayment period for three years to help Corus weather the downturn. Tata Steel has to repay $795 million in 2009-10 and $1.3 billion in 2010-11; however, the company is free from repayment until December 2009. "The company may use part its $1.9 billion reserves for the loan repayment, but that will adversely affect its expansion plans in India. The company requires $1.2 billion for its capital expenditure during this fiscal," tsaid a Mumbai-based analyst. Corus, the analyst added, has already cut 40 per cent of its production after the demand slump, so cash flows from Europe also will be lower. "The restricted cash flow will affect Corus' plans to acquire iron ore and coking coal mines for raw material security," said a Mumbai-based analyst.The Tata Steel and Corus managements have already gone through some top-level changes after Philippe Varin resigned as chief executive to head French-car maker PSA Peugeot Citroen. Kirby Adams, former chief executive of Blue Scope Steel in Australia, has succeeded Varin.
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