South Africa – Video

Working on the relining project has been a highly rewarding experience for me. As Project Manager, I have been involved full time on the project over the last 18 months, from the planning stages, through the capital procurement process, to the final shut down of the furnace and the execution of the reline works. It has been wonderful to work with many dedicated people in the reline team and it is projects like these that allow our employees to grow and learn, and in doing so enrich their own jobs at ArcelorMittal.

To explain the Corex process briefly – the Corex is a smelting-reduction furnace which produces liquid iron of similar quality and specification as a Blast Furnace, for use in the down stream steelmaking process. The Corex at Saldanha Works produces about 750 000 tons of liquid iron annually. Additionally, the Corex process delivers a large amount of off-gas, which is used in a Direct Reduction furnace to produce about 650 000 tons of sponge iron, also called DRI, for use in the down stream steelmaking process.

The Corex was hot commissioned in December 1998, and has operated continuously until February 2008, when the furnace was shut down for a reline. The reline scope entailed replacing all the refractory linings in the melter-gasifier, the reduction shaft and the dust cyclones. Two rows of iron staves were replaced in the melter-gasifier, and an additional row of staves was installed in order to raise the dust burner elevation. Also, extensive repairs were done on the process water scrubbers and gas pipe lines.

We have all enjoyed working together on this project and feel very proud of the results so far.