Economic Benefits of Producing DRI to Displace Purchased Scrap in the BOF

摘要

The increased availability and reduced cost of natural gas has prompted North American steelmakers to investigate the implementation of new direct reduced iron (DRI) production facilities and using the resulting DRI in their existing steelmaking operations to reduce operating costs. The addition of DRI into the blast furnace to increase hot metal output and decrease coke rate is well known but this option only has economic merit if the steel plant is hot metal limited and its downstream equipment is able to process the additional iron units into cast or rolled steel. A better option for a large integrated steelmaker is to produce DRI using captive iron ore resources and use the DRI across their various steelmaking facilities to displace purchased scrap in the basic oxygen furnace (BOF) charge mix. A case study is presented describing the use of DRI as a scrap replacement and illustrating how a large steelmaker can reduce its operating costs and take advantage of low cost natural gas and internal iron ore resources.