NEW DELHI (Commodity Online): South Korean steel major, POSCO will introduce FINEX technical application in steel production at its plant in Orissa and in the proposed joint venture with SAIL Ltd at Bokaro.
India will be the first nation to get access to this technology and would be advantageous for both the nations. “When these plants come up it will be for the first time that FINEX technology will operate outside Korea. It will bring advantage both to India and Korea as the Indian steel industry needs access to new innovative technologies as it embarks on a high growth phase of its development, while to POSCO, the Indian market would provide a unique opportunity for growth and development,” according to P K Misra, India Steel Secretary.
At a seminar on FINEX Technical Application organised by Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and POSCO.
FINEX is an innovative, cost-effective and sustainable technology, developed by POSCO with its engineering partner, Siemens. It is innovative as it directly uses iron ore fines and noncoking coal without coking and sintering processes. It is cost-competitive because it uses low grade raw materials like iron ore fines and non-coking coal and is sustainable and environment-friendly compared to the conventional blast furnace. It emits significantly lower amount of nitrogen oxide, sulphur oxide and dust. It also has great potential for mitigation of carbon dioxide.
The Steel Secretary said that one of the strengths of the Indian steel industry is the abundance of low cost, quality iron ore on the country. However, “the steel industry has not been able to leverage this advantage to the fullest extent. Systematic development efforts need to be made to create additional mining capacity, encourage investment and speedier environment and forestry clearances.” It is estimated that domestic requirement of iron ore for steel consumption will go up by almost 200 million tonnes by the end of the 12th Plan.
