China's key EAF steel plants ton steel consumption in 2021: 542kg pig iron, 1.6kg electrode, and 0.94 hours smelting cycle

1. EAF technical and economic indicators analysis

In 2021, key statistical units EAF steel output was 45.6241 million tons, and EAF steel ratio was 5.47%. In 2021, key statistical units EAF metal materials consumption increased by 5.18kg/t year-on-year, steel materials consumption increased by 6.60kg/t year-on-year, smelting comprehensive power consumption decreased by 18.92kWh year-on-year, and the smelting cycle decreased by 0.07h year-on-year. Juxing graphite electrode has high conductivity and low ash content, which is widely used for steelmaking in electric arc furnace and ladle furnace.

In 2021, key statistical units used 110.6588 million tons of scrap steel, a year-on-year increase of 24.01%; The EAF consumed 542.26kg/t hot metal, with a year-on-year increase of 36.71kg/t. Technical and economic indicators of EAF in 2021 are shown in Table 2.

EAF process energy consumption includes EAF smelting energy consumption, EAF power consumption, EAF refining energy consumption, EAF refining energy consumption and continuous casting energy consumption. The data in 2021 were 42.22kgce/t (+5.79kgce/t), 213.12kwh/t (-25.62kWh/t), 18.65kgce/t (-2.73kgce/t), 80.60kwh/t (-0.47kWh/t) and 10.15kgce/t (+0.57kgce/t) respectively. The figures in brackets are the values of changes in 2021 and 2020.

In 2021, key statistical units electric furnace process energy consumption  was 53.55kgce/t, with a increase of 0.49kgce/t year-on-year.

The power consumption accounts for about 60% of the total energy consumption of the EAF process, and saving electricity is the main content of energy saving in the EAF process. EAF enterprises have taken a series of energy-saving measures, such as increasing the proportion of hot metal, scrap preheating, oxygen blowing, carbon spraying and waste heat recovery, which have played a positive role in energy saving and consumption reduction of EAF processes in China.

2. EAF hot metal used analysis

Due to a variety of reasons, most of the electric furnace enterprises in China have built small blast furnaces and used hot molten iron to make steel, resulting in low energy consumption in EAF processes in China, which can not be compared with the smelting index of international electric furnace scrap steel. The proportion of hot molten iron used in EAF process of various enterprises varies greatly. The hot molten iron consumption is ± 1%, which affects the power consumption of 1.2kWh/t and 0.484kgce/t energy consumption. From the perspective of technological development, EAF to use more than 60% hot metal for smelting production is unscientific. From short process to long process, the energy consumption and pollutant production of smelting system will increase, and the cost will also increase compared with converter. Enterprises that use too high a proportion of hot molten iron shall stop EAFs and switch to converter production. In 2021, among the key statistical enterprises, 12 enterprises have increased the amount of hot iron used in EAFs year-on-year, and 13 enterprises have decreased the amount of hot iron used in EAFs year-on-year.

3. EAF smelting cycle analysis

In 2021, key statistical units EAF smelting cycle was 0.94h, a year-on-year decrease of 0.07h, and the EAF smelting cycle of 25 enterprises decreased year-on-year.

4. EAF comprehensive power consumption analysis

In 2021, key statistical units EAFs comprehensive power consumption was 311.62kWh/t, a year-on-year decrease of 18.92kWh/t, 15 enterprises comprehensive power consumption decreased year-on-year, and 13 enterprises comprehensive power consumption increased year-on-year.

5. EAF production calendar operation rate analysis

In 2021, key statistical units EAF production calendar operation rate was 69.09%, an increase of 28.22 percentage points year-on-year. Among them, 15 enterprises calendar operation rate decreased year-on-year and that of 11 enterprises increased year-on-year.

6. Scrap steel used in EAF

In 2021, key statistical units EAFs consumed 19.975 million tons of scrap steel, an increase of 10.16% year-on-year. Contact us for more professional EAF comsumption news.