Liberty Steel will equip its Liberty Dunaujvaros, previously known as Dunaferr, with two electric arc furnaces, rather than just one as planned previously, almost doubling the Hungarian plant’s capacity as it is transformed into a low carbon emitter, the Indian-owned company said Aug. 5.
Liberty also said its technology partner CISDI, a Chinese state-owned company offering engineering, procurement and construction services to the steel industry, had received preliminary financial backing from China’s Export and Credit Insurance Corporation (Sinosure) to carry out the Dunaujvaros mill’s transformation, paving the way to finalize the project’s capital structure.
In May, Liberty and CISDI signed an agreement to finalize the feasibility study for the project, after having in September 2023 signed a memorandum of understanding with the Hungarian government agreeing in principle to re-equip the metallurgical coal-based plant with electric arc furnace technology.
Under the agreement in principle between CISDI and Sinosure, Sinosure will provide credit insurance backing the Eur1.3 billion investment in the financing, export and installation at Liberty Dunaujvaros of two EAFs with 1.5 million mt/year capacity each.
The two EAFs will replace coal-based steelmaking operations and together with the upgraded secondary metallurgy units will recycle ferrous scrap and direct reduced iron producing slabs to be further processed into hot-rolled coils, with the whole cycle emitting 80% less CO2 compared with the mill’s existing blast furnace-based production units, which can produce up to 1.2 million mt/year of liquid iron and 1.6 million mt/year of steel.
Liberty already ended coke production at the Dunaujvaros site when in mid-June it started to close its two coke oven batteries, citing their loss-making operations due to the oversupplied market. The iron smelting furnaces at the steelworks remain idle with only the rolling mills running.
The Eur1.3 billion investment package will also include an upgrade to existing hot rolling and galvanizing operations and the installation of some new lines to cater for defense and automotive applications.
“The plant will incorporate the very latest electric arc furnace, ladle furnace, vacuum degassing, slab caster and AI control systems from CISDI to bring it to a world beating level of efficiency,” CISDI’s Chairman Xiao Peng said in a statement.
The specifications of plant will be finalized once the partners complete the project’s technical and feasibility studies.
The cooperation between Liberty Dunaujvaros and CISDI underlines the growing relationship between China and Hungary, and shows significant benefits of investment in sustainable steelmaking technologies, according to Sinosure representative He Zhigang.
