Fast Startup for ENERGIRON Plant at Ezz Steel – Egypt

The new Cold DRI plant, featuring the ENERGIRON III technology, produced its first DRI on the 22nd of November and passed the Hot Test on the 2nd of December. After the Hot test completion, the plant, ready to increase its productivity, has been forced to work at reduced rate, due to limitations in the natural gas availability from the national network.

The natural gas full availability was restored on the 14th of December and the plant has been successfully and quickly ramped up to its full productivity, allowing to declare the performance test start on the 15th of December only 13 days after the Hot Test completion.
The test lasted 120 hours, during which the plant performed well above its target figures.
The productivity was 112% of the guaranteed value showing a metallization >94% and a carbon content >3%, a feature achievable only with the ENERGIRON technology.
Natural gas specific consumption of 2,57 Gcal/t and Electric Energy of 30 kWh/t complete the picture of an optimized technology with respect to overall energy consumption.

One of the most peculiar characteristics of the ENERGIRON is the raw material yield. The ERM plant showed an impressive ratio of 1.37 t of oxide per t of DRI and is able to process oxide pellets or lumps screened at 3.2 mm, minimizing the rejected portion.

All this results in the lowest OPEX nowadays achievable in the DR technology panorama.
The total plant production already exceeded the 110,000 tons in less than one month of operation, corresponding to the 66% of the learning curve.
The hourly production rate has reached 262 t/h, corresponding to an annual productivity of 2.1 Mtpy, more than 10% above the guaranteed value of 1.9 Mtpy.

The client expressed its full satisfaction and acceptance of the plant performance, recognizing the expertise of Danieli and Tenova, which, in partnership with the excellent professionality of ERM team allowed achieving this important milestone.