IRC Limited would be built in the far East factory for the production of hot briquetted iron (HBI) for the needs of shipyards in the region. The far East is a critical region from the point of view of the scrap, and Rosneft has long been looking for an opportunity to provide shipbuilding complex “Star” steel sheet. The construction of the HBI plant will provide far Eastern shipbuilding steel without massive investment in the blast furnace-Converter steelmaking, experts say.LLC “Petropavlovsk — ferrous metallurgy”, part of the holding IRC Limited, intends to build a plant to manufacture hot briquetted iron (HBI) in the far East, according to a joint statement, the companies and Agencies in the Far East to attract investment and support exports (ANO IPA) on the day of the investor in the Jewish Autonomous region. Products can be used as raw material for steel production in shipbuilding plants of the Far East — SSK “Zvezda”, JSC as JSC Kherson shipyard. Implementation of the project depends on the plans of gasification of the Jewish Autonomous region and the construction of the railway line Shimanovskaya — Gar ‘ — Fevral’sk.Plant for the production of HBI will be built in the framework of development of Kimkano-sutarsky GOK. By the end of 2019, the mine produced 2.6 million tonnes of concentrate, due to the development of Kostenginskoye and sutarsky deposits in Jewish Autonomous region is planned to reach the volume of 3.5–4 million tonnes of concentrate per year.IRC was originally included in the Petropavlovsk gold mining as the iron ore subsidiaries of the holding company, but in March Petropavlovsk has signed a preliminary agreement for the sale of over $10 million to 29.9% of its shares with the investment company Stocken Board AG. Petropavlovsk will remain at 1.2% of the company. As follows from the IRC, the only buyer of its concentrate in Russia, Evraz is, in 2019, he purchased raw materials of $98.9 million He was interested in 2019 purchase of the company but before the deal negotiations are not reached. The company also supplies to China.The far East is a scarce region, in terms of scrap collection, with the alternative being in the production of steel is the HBI. Estimated FRCC, in 2018, the deficit of scrap in the far Eastern Federal district amounted 228 thousand tons, or 46% of the demand. The government had long been considering different ways to provide a steel sheet FCS “Star” (belongs “Rosneft”, “Rosneftegaz” and Gazprombank): a sheet supply by railway construction in Primorye mill-5000, which assumed the delivery of the slabs, and the creation of full cycle production. The Ministry repeatedly stated that the lack of need for new rolling capacities in the far East. Interlocutors “” among metallurgists talked about the presence of technical possibility of supplying large format sheet by rail, but the head of “Rosneft” Igor Sechin said a year ago at meetings�� with Vladimir Putin that the railway sheet of such dimensions taken can not be.According to Boris Krasnozhenova of Alfa Bank, the idea of HBI on the basis of facilities of LLC “Petropavlovsk — Chernaya Metallurgiya” looks quite logical. HBI has traditionally been used in electrometallurgy. The only major steel production in the far East is “Amurstal”, which includes electric arc furnaces (EAF) to produce steel. Given the convenient logistics, and HBI can be supplied to existing or new EAF capacity in the far East. HBI, in contrast to traditional types of iron ore, almost does not contain harmful impurities, which is critical to the production of high quality steel. Thus, the expert believes, can be produced steel for the shipyards without large investments in major domain-Converter steelmaking facilities, the construction of which will require several years.Eugene Zainullin
