Achieving Low Coke Rate Using Calibrated Iron Ore as the Sole Iron Source in Burden Charge During the Successful Recommissioning of Blast Furnace in Syria

In the backdrop of war and amid sanctions on Syria, a mini blast furnace has been successfully recommissioned in Hassia, Syria, and the hot metal produced is used for the production of 130 mm2 mild steel billets, providing import substitution as presently the billets are being imported from countries such as Russia, Ukraine, etc. Emmar Steel (ES) is an integrated steel plant having a production capacity of about 0.5 million tons of steel per annum. ES operates a mini blast furnace (MBF) with a designed capacity of 500 TPD (tons per day) to produce hot metal. ES is the only steel plant, which houses a blast furnace and the first of its kind in the whole of Syria, the Gulf region and in the countries surrounding Syria (excluding Turkey). In the past two decades, almost all blast furnaces across the globe use a charge burden consisting of various permutations and combinations of iron ore, sinter/pellets of iron-bearing materials as sources of iron depending on their availability, ease of operation, and economies of scale. But, sometimes due to the non-availability of iron ore fines, sintering, and pelletizing facilities, it becomes necessary to manage the charging burden only with iron ore as the sole source of iron. The present paper describes the efforts taken to achieve a low coke rate of 568 kgs/ton of hot metal (THM) during the recommissioning period of about 4 months (May to August 2018), wherein it produced about 56800 tons of hot metal from about 86100 tons of calibrated iron ore with peak production of 650 TPD against the designed capacity of 500 TPD in the mini blast furnace of ES located at Hassia, Syria.