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The major types of steel production equipment installed at the end of 2005 consisted of 28 blast
furnaces, 63 basic oxygen furnaces, and 349 electric furnaces. A comparison with the status at the
end of 2001 shows a particular concentration of electric furnaces.
In ironmaking, blast furnace capacity has been expanded as a result of relinings carried out in
recent years. The average capacity of blast furnaces in operation in Japan now exceeds 4,000 m3.
Also, the pulverized coal injection (PCI) ratio has dropped to 118 kg/ton of pig iron because of
recent increases in production runs and BF repairs. In 2004, three blast furnaces were relined.
In steelmaking, efforts are being made to further improve productivity and enhance product quality.
To this end, steelmakers are working to upgrade BF hot metal pretreatment technology, BOF
operation technology, and secondary refining technology such as vacuum treatment.
Moreover, technology is under development for recycling BF, BOF, and EF dust, sludge from rolling
mills and the like, as raw materials in iron- and steelmaking processes. Applications to actual
equipment have gone into operation one after another. Further, waste plastics and tires disposed
of by communities and other industries are reused as they are recycled as energy resources in
such production facilities as blast furnaces and coke ovens. Thus these technologies are meant to
contribute to addressing global warming.
SCOPE 21 (Super Coke Oven for Productivity and Environment Enhancement in the 21st Century)
was successfully completed in fiscal 2003. This was a national project to develop an innovative,
next-generation coke oven process that features environmental friendliness, energy-saving, and
high productivity. In fiscal 2006, Nippon Steel Corporation plans to start constructing a new coke
oven at its Oita Works that applies the technology.
With the basic research stage of the research and development of Ultra Steel already completed,
studies are currently under way to put the steel into practical use. The new steel offers twice the
strength of ordinary structural steel and more than double its service life.
Many other innovative R&D programs are also being carried out. These include development of
technology for producing hydrogen by reforming coke oven gas and basic technology for creating
ultrafine-grained steel, as well as R&D aimed at making effective use of steel slag in marine areas.
Meanwhile, R&D efforts are under way to develop environment-friendly, high-value-added new
products. Among them are high-strength steel featuring excellent press formability and weldability,
weather-resistant steel offering outstanding corrosion resistance, coated sheets that provide
excellent characteristics without containing environment-loading substances such as chromium
and lead, and steel products with surface coatings that offer enhanced fungus resistance, heat
radiation, and light reflection. These products have been commercialized one after another.
The Equipment and Technology data (PDF)
