Nippon Steel Starts Construction of New Coke Oven at Oita

Nippon Steel Corporation started the construction of no.5 coke oven battery at Oita works on Monday. The firm plans to build the battery with 1 million tonnes of the annual output capacity and to introduce the new coke making process called SCOPE21 (Super Coke Oven for Productivity and Environment enhancement toward the 21st century) there. The construction is scheduled to complete in 21 months and the battery will start the operation in the beginning of 2008. Oita works also try to reduce the coke consumption by pulverised coal injection. As a total, the works can supply the coke requirement after the completion of 5th battery.Oita works hold 320 coke ovens in 4 batteries and the total output capacity is about 3 million tonnes per year. The works need to procure some cokes from the other suppliers including China in order to produce around 9 million tonnes of raw steel per year.SCOPE21 is the coke making process to use coal resources more effectively, which was conducted by the Center for Coal Utilization and the Japan Iron and Steel Federation with the support by Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. SCOPE21 realizes the more usage ratio of non-caking coal, the shorter production lead time by the addition of the pre-treating process, the less equipment investment thanks to the higher productivity along with the lower CO2 emission.