Yury Adno

W

ith commissioning the second phase of the HBI shop the Lebedinsky integrated ore mining and processing mill will annually produce up to 2.5 million tons of hot briquetted iron. So, it will become one of the world’s largest producers of this raw material surpassing Australia’s BHP and Venezuela’s Orinoco Iron, which at present put out 2.2 million tons each.
The cost of the second phase amounts to $400 million. The project is being financed for 85% by the mill’s own funds, the rest of funds is provided as credits from Western banks. Purchasing equipment accounts for about 40% of the project’s cost; 60% of orders will be placed with Russian enterprises.
The new production facilities should start putting out HBI in two years. It will be intended mainly for exports. It is expected that the main consumers of HBI will include steel companies of France, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Korea and the US.
The technology of direct reduction of iron from ore already has a long history. It was developed in the first half of the 1950s; at the start this technology was used in the US and, later, it was spread to Mexico, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Venezuela. Precisely in these countries the first commercial installations to make prereduced pellets and hot briquetted iron emerged. The interest in this technology was caused by the growing shortage of coke, lack of quality metallic scrap and increase in capital intensity of the traditional technology. Steel made of briquetted iron has a higher degree of cleanness from harmful substances and, as a result, improved consumer characteristics. The use of metallized raw material helps reduce the prime cost and the dependence on supplies of deficient coke (as compared with the blast-furnace process) as well as improve the environment protection. As a type of raw material, HBI is particularly promising with respect to making special steels and alloys.
The technology of direct reduction of iron from ore is used at Russia’s Oskol Electric Steel Works (OEMK), where prereduced pellets are made according to the Midrex technology. The Lebedinsky integrated ore mining and processing mill has become another Russian enterprise to use this technology. Europe’s first and only installation to produce hot briquetted iron has been constructed there in 1999.
The Lebedinsky integrated ore mining and processing mill is Russia’s largest enterprise of mining and concentrating iron ore as well as producing high-quality raw material for the steel industry. It is based on the Lebedinsky field of ferriferous quartzites of the Kursk magnetic anomaly. The enterprise’s production volume by rock mass is over 100 million tons year-on-year. About 50 million tons of this amount account for ferriferous quartzites, which, by their characteristics, serve as a basis for producing Europe’s best metallurgical raw material. By the volume of ore reserves (20 billion tons) and scale of mining, the Lebedinsky integrated mill is included in the first ten of the world’s ore mining and processing enterprises.
The technological process of producing iron ore raw material at the Lebedinsky integrated ore mining and processing mill consists of the following stages:
- quarry mining of ferriferous quartzites;
- fragmentation, ore reduction and concentration;
- production of concentrate with the content of iron amounting to 69.5%; it is used to put out iron ore pellets for blast-furnace melting;
- afterconcentration of some concentrate with the content of over 70% of iron intended for producing metallized briquettes.
According to the enterprise’s managing director Boris Malyavin, precisely the combination of such factors as the proximity to raw material base, availability of natural gas and qualified personnel predetermined the decision to place facilities for production of hot briquetted iron at the Lebedinsky integrated ore mining and processing mill. These factors as well as a high quality of products and their wide range make it possible for the integrated mill to successfully compete on the domestic and foreign markets.
By the data from the Rudprom corporation, the Lebedinsky integrated mill accounts for about 22% of concentrate produced in Russia, 28% of pellets and 100% of briquettes. Consumers of its products include most of Russia’s major steelmakers, such as Novolipetsk Iron & Steel, Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel, Tulachermet, Mechel, Oskol Electric Steel, etc. as well as companies of Ukraine, Spain, China, France, Slovakia, Italy, Finland, Czechia, Poland and others.
The past year was the record one for the Lebedinsky integrated ore mining and processing mill by volumes of putting out iron ore products. Over 20 million tons of iron ore concentrate were produced there (by 5.4% more than the previous year) as well as about 9.6 million tons of pellets (by 4.3% more than in 2003) and over 1 million tons of metallized products (see Table 1). In 2005 it is expected that there will be a further growth of the production volume: by 4.6% of iron ore concentrate and by 4% of pellets. The integrated mill has started a large-scale reconstruction of concentrating and pelletizing plants and has invested $23 million for these purposes in 2004. This year it plans to invest $14 million more.
The successful operation of the first phase of the HBI shop served as an inspiring example of the rational combination of the richest raw material resources and advanced metallurgical technologies. The strategic importance of implementing the project’s second phase lies in providing the market with products of a higher degree of processing and new higher level of quality that corresponds to the world standards.

Table 1. Products of Lebedinsky integrated ore mining and processing mill,
(thou tons)

Type of product 2003 2004
Iron ore concentrate 19,020 20,074
Afterconcentration of iron ore concentrate 5,297 5,479
Iron ore pellets 9,231 9,630
Iron ore briquettes 1,000.5 1,000.03
Source: the company’s data