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Six months of successful operation of first commercial Finex plant at Posco, Korea

During the first six months of operation more than 650,000 tons of hot metal were tapped from the first commercial Finex plant at Posco's Pohang Works in Korea. The nominal melting rate of 180 tons per hour was achieved within several weeks following the initial start-up. The quality of the hot metal fully satisfied the requirements for subsequent processing in Posco’s steel works right from the start of production. The Finex process, jointly developed by Posco and Siemens Metals Technologies, allows for the use of low-cost iron-ore fines and non-coking coal. This reduces hot-metal production costs by approximately 15% in comparison with the blast-furnace route. At the same time, environmental emissions are significantly reduced.
 
25 Oct 2007 , Linz : During the first six months of operation more than 650,000 tons of hot metal were tapped from the first commercial Finex plant at Posco's Pohang Works in Korea. The nominal melting rate of 180 tons per hour was achieved within several weeks following the initial start-up. The quality of the hot metal fully satisfied the requirements for subsequent processing in Posco’s steel works right from the start of production. The Finex process, jointly developed by Posco and Siemens Metals Technologies, allows for the use of low-cost iron-ore fines and non-coking coal. This reduces hot-metal production costs by approximately 15% in comparison with the blast-furnace route. At the same time, environmental emissions are significantly reduced.

“Finex technology offers producers the potential to further reduce ironmaking costs with an environmentally compatible technology,” comments Dr. Johannes Schenk, responsible for the development of the Finex process at Siemens Metals Technologies. “With consideration to the further optimization capability of the process, Finex thus has the potential to revolutionize the iron and steel industry, similar to other breakthrough technologies such as the LD (BOF) steelmaking and continuous casting processes.”

The first commercial Finex plant with an annual capacity of 1.5 million tons was built at Posco’s Pohang Works. In August 2004, a contract was signed with Siemens Metals Technologies for the engineering of this plant. This was preceded by the successful operation of a Demonstration Plant in Pohang with a nominal capacity of 800,000 tons of hot metal per year, which was the result of the joint development of the Finex process since 1992. The excellent production parameters that were already achieved in the Finex Demonstration Plant have been generally equaled or surpassed by the Finex 1.5M Industrial Plant. Currently, activities are focusing on further optimizing the process with the goal to reduce the already excellent -hot-metal unit costs. Export gas from the Finex plant is used primarily for the generation of electric energy in a highly efficient combined-cycle power plant owned by Posco.

According to Dr. Schenk, the close cooperation with Posco was the key to the success of the first commercial Finex plant. “The Finex Process is an outstanding example of a successful cooperation between a plant operator and a plant builder. Thanks to the pooling of Posco´s and Siemens´ strengths, a highly cost-competitive and environmentally friendly technology could be developed for the iron and steel industry on the basis of low-cost iron-ore fines and non-coking coal.

Additional information on the Finex-process is available at:
www.siemens-vai.com/Finex

Additional information on solutions for steel works, rolling mills and processing lines is available at www.siemens.com/metals.

A photo supplements this press release. Please see: www.industry.siemens.com/data/presse/pics/04076137.jpg
 
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