Turkey’s Tosyali focuses on low-emission steel production

One of Turkey’s largest steel producers, Tosyali Holding, which has exceeded 6 million mt of annual steel production capacity at its mills in three continents, has focused on low-emission steel production, said CEO Fuat Tosyali, adding that they have already started to produce the world’s most environmentally benign steel at their mill in Algeria with the support of DRI technology supplied by Midrex.

Tosyali Algerie, produced more than 2.23 million mt of direct reduced iron (DRI) in 2020, a world record for a single direct reduction module.

“We have been producing steel with lowest carbon footprint in the world at our Algeria mill with the support DRI technology and we are determined to sustain that in the coming years,” the CEO told local news agency Dunya.

The company’s DRI plant began using hot DRI (HDRI) at the electric arc furnace (EAF) melt shop in February 2019. HDRI made up almost 72% of total production in 2020 (1.6 million mt), with average metallization of about 94% and carbon averaging around 2.2%.

Iron ore pellets feeding the DRI plant were supplied mainly by Tosyali Algerie’s own 4.0 million mt/year pellet plant on site. The Tosyali Algérie DRI plant has a design capacity of 2.5 million mt/year.

Tosyali has also focused on sustainable low-emission steel production at its mills in Turkey. The company is investing on renewable energy resources and metal recovery services in this regard.

The company installed a solar energy plant on the roof of the ERW pipe profile production facility in Osmaniye, southern Turkey. At 200,000 square meters it is the largest roof energy project in Europe.

Tosyali and US-based Harsco Corp. also signed a joint venture agreement in 2017 for metal recovery services and slag sales at the Toscelik Osmaniye flats mill. About 1.2 million mt of slag waste is handled at the plant annually.

An Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process has recently started for one of Turkey’s largest steel producers, Tosyali Demir Celik’s new 3.5 million mt HRC mill project in Turkey, as Platts has reported.

The company’s new $1 billion integrated flats mill, scheduled to be commissioned by the end of 2022, will produce steel from scrap in the first phase but will later produce steel from iron ore.

The company has placed an order with plant maker Primetals Technologies to supply an EAF Quantum electric arc furnace, a twin vacuum-degassing plant with oxygen blowing and a two-strand slab caster for this project.

The EAF Quantum is designed to handle metallic scrap and materials such as HBI and pig iron in different compositions and qualities. The electrical energy requirement of the electric arc furnace is extremely low, reducing both operating costs and the CO2 emissions.

— Cenk Can