Global Slag News

World: Global steel production rose by 4.6% year-on-year to 1.81Bnt in 2018 from 1.73Bnt in 2017. Data from the World Steel Association shows that production rose fastest in the Middle East, Africa and Australasia. Asian production rose by 5.6% to 1.27Bnt and North American production grew by 4.1% to 121Mt. European production remained static at 312Mt, with a slight dip in the European Union (EU) balanced by slight growth in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). China remained the largest steel producing country, with 9.28Mt in 2018. It was followed by India, Japan, the US and South Korea.

China: HBIS Laoting Steel has signed a US$247m contract with US-based Harsco for mill services. The 15-year agreement expands Harsco’s partnership with HBIS. The company has provided steel mill services to Tangshan Steel Group, a subsidiary of HBIS, for over a decade previously.

Under the expanded agreement, Harsco will deliver on-site mill services, including under furnace cleaning; slag transport and metal recovery; scrap and tundish cutting; and desulphurisation and ladle slag processing. Harsco also plans to partner with Chinese design institutes to design and build metal recovery and slag processing plants when the steel mill is put into operation. Upon completion, the Harsco-designed system will be able to process 1.42Mt/yr of slag at Laoting Steel. Additionally, Harsco intends to use ‘waste to resources’ technologies to transform slag into products for construction and other purposes.

UK: Hanson has completed a Euro1.25m upgrade to its Bellshill cement terminal in Glasgow, converting it into a dual product storage and distribution site. Improvements included new pipework and a new silo monitoring system. The site has three silos: two for cement powder, transported by rail from the company’s Ribblesdale cement plant in Lancashire, and one for the storage and distribution of ground granulated blastfurnace slag (GGBS), produced at the company’s Teesport site in Middlesbrough. The upgrade took 17 months to complete. Cement has been transported by rail to the Bellshill terminal since 2007.

India: JSW Steel has signed a 10-year agreement with US-based Harsco for a range of mill services. Harsco will provide JSW Dolvi in Maharashtra with on-site slag handling services including under-furnace digging, ladle wrecking, and hot slag transport. No value for the contract has been disclosed.

US: Charah has opened a slag grinding plant at the Port of Coeymans near Albany, New York. The unit uses the company’s proprietary process to grind granulated blast furnace slag (GBFS) to create supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs). The site is accessible by ship, truck and rail and will sell materials to concrete producers in the northeast of the country.

The new plant will also produce slag cement that is marketed under the MultiCem brand. Slag cement will be distributed throughout Charah Solutions’ MultiSource materials network, a nationwide distribution system of more than 30 sourcing locations that provide ready mix concrete (RMX) producers and other customers SCMs, including fly ash and slag cement.