The construction of the first ever COREXC 3000 smelting equipment has been completed at the Luojing greenfield project of Pudong Steel, which is a subsidiary of Chinese giant steelmaker Baosteel. On November 8, the new equipment yielded its first iron output. COREXC 3000 is the largest molten iron production equipment in the world and the Luojing project marks the first time it has been put into operation.
The designed capacity of the new equipment is 1.5 million mt of molten iron per annum, which nearly doubles the capacity of the COREXC 2000. Currently there are four COREXC 2000 in the world: at South Africa MittalSteel, South Korean steelmaker POSCO Steel and Indian producer Jindal Steel.
In addition to being the world's largest COREX iron making project, the new COREXC 3000 equipment also marks the first use of the COREX smelting technique in China.
Developed by Siemens VAI, Corex is the only industrially proven smelting-reduction process for the cost-efficient and environmentally friendly production of molten iron from iron ore and coal. The process differs from the conventional blast furnace in that non-coking coal can be directly used for ore reduction and melting work, eliminating the need for coking plants. The use of lump ore or pellets also dispenses with the need for sinter plants.