Nippon Steel Kim Jun-Jin No. 2 blast furnace to maintain high utilization factor

To strengthen cost competitiveness, Nippon Steel & Chemical Sumitomo discontinued a blast furnace in Junjin Plant in March 2016, reducing the blast furnace capacity from three blast furnaces to two and bringing the two blast furnaces to the same capacity as the original three blast furnaces to maintain Iron source of the steady supply. For this reason, the No. 2 blast furnace in Kimjin Plant has adopted a high utilization factor and has maintained its highest level in Japan for one year in succession from November 2016 to the present, and the operation of the blast furnace is stable.

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The blast furnace was built in November 1994, with an area of 3273 cubic meters. After overhaul and expansion, it was re-ignited in May 2012 with an area of 4500 cubic meters and a hearth diameter of 13.8 meters. In 2015, Junjin Factory conducted a test to improve the utilization factor of No.2 blast furnace. From November 2016 onwards, No. 2 blast furnace was formally produced at a utilization factor much higher than blast furnaces of the same size. Through efforts on raw material conditions and supply air conditions, the amount of iron output per unit time increased by about 20%.

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The operation of large blast furnaces at high utilization factors has long been considered to be technically challenging. From a worldwide perspective, there are only a few companies that use iron and steel enterprises with high utilization factors. JFE Steel East Japan Steel Co., Ltd. Keihin-ku No.2 blast furnace (furnace volume 5000 cubic meters) created a record of blast furnace utilization factor of more than 2.5 by injecting LNG in 2007, and Pohang's large-scale blast furnace utilization factor reached 2.7 or more.