Operational experience and potential of the corex process

In 1989 in Corex plant, the world's first industrial smelting reduction plant, was started up at Iscor, Pretoria. Since then the plant has been operating without interruption, now at 10% above its nominal capacity of 300 000 t/year. Corex is a two-stage process producing hot metal with non-coking coal. With silicon values of 0.3% and sulphur values below 0.05% the hot metal has the same quality as produced in a blast furnace. Production costs are about 30% below the costs of the blast furnace route. The generated gas can be fed into the steelworks' energy system. Emissions are distinctly lower than with the conventional production route.