Nippon Steel Plans Full Operation Trial of SCOPE21 Oven in Jan09

Nippon Steel’s Oita works is steadily raising the operating rate of No.5 coke oven, which is the first commercial facility adopting “SCOPE21,” next generation coke making method, and started operation in May 2008. They plan a trial to confirm coke quality and energy saving effect under the full operating condition in early January 2009. They try to bring the oven into stably high level operation as early as possible.

No.5 coke oven and related equipment, including a pre-treating facilitu, a coke oven and a coke dry quenching facility, started the total operation on 30 May, 2008. The oven has 64 carbonizing chambers. The full output is 1 million tonnes per year at 184.5% operating rate (100% operating rate is defined as removing cokes from all chambers a day).

The operating rate keeps around 170% since November and temporarily approached 180%, though 170% level was originally planned in January 2009. Then Oita works will implement a trial at 184.5% operating rate in January.

SCOPE21 technology was developed under the national project to respond to material and energy problems. The technology enables coke quality improvement and shorter production lead time by the rapid pre-heating process for coke. SCOPE21 can contribute to more utilization of low grade coke and wider energy saving effect.