Customer

Mittal Steel 

Location

East Chicago, Indiana

Capacity

110 tons/hour

Project Description

Mittal Steel (formerly Ispat Inland Inc.) and Primary Energy identified an opportunity to reduce costs and improve the competitiveness of Mittal Steel's blast furnaces by substituting pulverized coal for a significant portion of the coke, natural gas, and fuel oil used in the iron production process. The two companies established a joint venture to build, own, and operate an onsite pulverized coal processing and injection facility.

Commercial Operation

1993

Benefits

The use of pulverized coal to replace a portion of the coke (also natural gas and fuel oil) in the blast furnace has substantial economic benefits. A ton of pulverized coal can be substituted for between .75 to .95 tons of coke, but the price differential between coke and coal ranges from 2 to 4 times depending on the metallurgical coke and coal markets. The ability to use pulverized coal clearly provides a large financial savings to Mittal Steel. The project also uses waste heat from the blast furnace stoves to dry the coal, thus eliminating the need to burn natural gas and therby further avoiding air emissions. Finally, blast furnace gas has a higher Btu content with coal utilization as opposed to coke, thus increasing the energy recovery potential for producing process steam and electricity.