Day: 25 August 2020

Rogesa, the joint pig iron works owned by Dillinger Hütte and Saarstahl in Germany’s Saarland, has begun hydrogen-based steel production.

According to the companies, the Dillingen works is the first site in Germany that uses hydrogen as a reducing agent in a blast furnace in normal operation. This is accomplished by injecting hydrogen-rich coke gas.

“We can further reduce our carbon emissions on the basis of this technology while gaining important experience in using hydrogen in steel production,” explains technology director Martin Baues. “The plant will enable us in the next step to use pure hydrogen in both blast furnaces.”

The investment in the new technology has amounted to  €14 million ($16.5m), Kallanish understands.

“Our ambitious goal is to reduce carbon emissions by 40% by 2035,” says the mill group’s ceo Tim Hartmann.

At a visit of German economy minister Peter Altmaier last week, Hartmann demanded that the political framework for this must still be created this year.

“The German government’s Steel Action Plan and the current German presidency of the EU Council provide the framework for Berlin and Brussels have to demonstrate their commitment to the Green Deal,“ he said.

Crude steel production in the 64 countries reporting to the World Steel Association in July registered a decrease of 2.5% on the year to 152.7 million metric tonnes in July, due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the association said Aug. 24.

North America and Europe registered the largest drop, down 28% to 7.2 million of mt and 24.4% to 9.81 million mt, respectively.

In North America, the United States produced 5.2 million mt of crude steel in July, a decrease of 29.4% compared to July 2019, while the largest European steel producer, Germany produced 2.4 million mt of crude steel in July, down 24.7% from last year.

Asian counties registered an increase of 2.3% last month to 116 million mt on the year, with China posting a rise of 9.1% at 93.4 million mt of crude steel while Vietnam showing an uptick of 19.8% to 2.15 million mt.

All the other Asian countries registered a fall. Japan produced 6.0 million mt of crude steel in July 2020, down 27.9% from July 2019. South Korea’s steel production for July 2020 was 5.5 Mt, down 8.3% from July 2019.

Turkey’s crude steel production for July was 3.1 million mt, up 7.4% from July 2019. South American countries registered a decrease of 6.1% to 3.12 million mt. Production in the Commonwealth of Independent States is estimated to be 8.1 million mt in July, down 5.8% on the year. Ukraine produced 1.8 million mt of crude steel in July, down 1.9% from last year.

— Annalisa Villa