kobe steel, page-4

Well Wikipedia makes me an expert.
The facts are :-
Electric Arc Furnace Steelmaking Costs 2010
Conversion costs for electric arc steelmaking

Electric arc furnace liquid steel cost model Item $/unit Factor Unit Unit cost Fixed Variable Total
Steel scrap 1.132 t 315 356.58 356.58
Scrap delivery 1.132 t 5 5.66 5.66
Pig iron / DRI 0 t 395 0.00 0.00
Pig iron / DRI delivery 0 t 40 0.00 0.00
Oxygen 14 m 3 0.08 1.12 1.12
Ferroalloys 0.014 t 1400 19.60 19.60
Fluxes 0.043 t 30 1.29 1.29
Electrodes 0.002 t 8900 13.35 13.35
Refractories 0.005 t 600 3.00 3.00
Thermal energy 1.33 GJ 12.5 16.63 16.63
Electricity 0.34 MWhr 90 4.59 26.01 30.60
Labour 0.351 Man hr 35 3.07 9.21 12.29
Depreciation 1 8 8.00
Interest 1 11.50 11.50
Total 27.16 452.45 479.61


As compared to :-


Blast Furnace Route Steelmaking Costs 2010
Conversion costs for BOF steelmaking

Integrated steelmaking - crude steel cost model Item $/unit Factor Unit Unit cost Fixed Variable Total
Iron ore 1.435 t 62 88.97 88.97
Iron ore transport 1.435 t 20 28.7 28.7
Coking coal 0.519 t 128.5 66.69 66.69
Coking coal transport 0.519 t 19.5 10.12 10.12
Steel scrap 0.162 t 325 52.65 52.65
Scrap delivery 0.162 t 5 0.81 0.81
Oxygen 80 m 3 0.08 6.40 6.40
Ferroalloys 0.014 t 1400 19.60 19.60
Fluxes 0.521 t 30 15.63 15.63
Refractories 0.011 t 600 6.60 6.60
Other costs 1 13 3.25 9.75 13.00
By-product credits -20.00 -20.00
Thermal energy, net -2.68 GJ 12.50 -33.50 -33.50
Electricity 0.122 MWh 150 2.75 15.56 18.3
Labour 0.64 Man hr 35 5.6 16.8 22.4
Depreciation 40.00 40.00
Interest 44.00 44.00
Total 95.6 284.78 380.37

You can see that EAF & Blast Furnace steel makers are trying to lower unit input costs.

But if an iron orebody has 20% ? waste iron ore fines there is a valuable resource begging to be rolled up into briquettes.

APG has only hinted that in the future it could do something there (remember the photo of iron ore trains)

Kobe Steel says it has the problem licked !
But Kobe does state that it uses steaming (high pollutant) coal -- are there any steaming coal deposits deposits in WA adjacent the iron orebody -- so far it has not been economic to do anything with these fines ! You could build a coal receiving port in WA and set up a plant on the docks but as far as I know they are flat out building export ports.
Does anyone know what happens to the "fines" at the present?

Now what APG does produce from a Ti O2 plant is extremely pure iron. Presumably this will be set up in the Murray Basin . The product needs no further processing other than briquette rolling.

It would seem that Kobe and APG are in different niches !