In May 2024, the Tosyali Algeria Phase 4 short-process Steel continuous casting project, which was EPC contracted by Sinosteel International Engineering & Technology Co., LTD. (hereinafter referred to as Sinosteel International, stock code 000928), was put into operation, and the largest electric furnace and the first double-flow slab continuous casting production line in Algeria were successfully constructed, which not only marked a technological breakthrough, but also marked a breakthrough. It is also a vivid practice of Sinosteel International's implementation of the concept of "green manufacturing, manufacturing green".

In August, the million-ton hydrogen-based shaft furnace of Baowu Zhanjiang Iron and Steel, which was designed and built by Sinosteel International, passed the weekly production function assessment and successfully verified the smelting conditions of high hydrogen (70% hydrogen content). This is Sinosteel's bold "carbon" line in the road of green and low-carbon development, which is of great significance to the exploration of zero-carbon green transformation and development of China's steel industry. In the same month, Sinosteel International released its semi-annual report for 2024, with a number of key data such as net profit, gross margin, overseas revenue, and research and development investment showing year-on-year growth.

With frequent action and bright data, Sinosteel International anchors high-quality development requirements, focuses on enhancing core competitiveness and core functions, and gallops on the green low-carbon metallurgical track. This is due to Sinosteel International's solid ideological foundation, keen insight, forward-looking layout, and innovation driven to promote low-carbon metallurgical technology research and development and engineering.

Ecological progress is fundamental to the sustainable development of the Chinese nation. As the basic industry of the national economy, the steel industry plays an important role in the world, but it is also a typical industry with high energy consumption and high carbon emissions.​ Hu Wangming, chairman of China Baowu, pointed out: "The future of steel is bound to be green, and we need to work together to seek common development of steel and win-win green future." China Baowu adheres to green and low-carbon development as the background color, brave when the new low-carbon metallurgy modern industrial chain is long, and accumulate new momentum for sustainable and high-quality development.​ And with the support of green development of the whole process system service technology integration capabilities, covering energy efficiency improvement, process, process optimization and reengineering, as well as cutting-edge zero-carbon technology, supplemented by carbon emission management and carbon reduction planning, can provide steel enterprises with the whole process, the whole life cycle of green low-carbon manufacturing comprehensive solutions.

Green innovation in raw material preparation

Based on the ability formed by the long-term technical engineering practice of the domestic foreign process, the company has always been committed to the transformation and optimization of the traditional process with the goal of improving energy efficiency, helping steel enterprises to optimize costs, improve quality and efficiency, and accelerate the transformation from scale to quality and efficiency.

Taking belt roasting machine pellets as an example, Sinosteel International takes the lead in creating China's completely independent belt roasting machine pelletizing process and equipment technology system under strict standards with keen industry insight, driven by innovation and unremitting research and development investment. At present, Sinosteel International has become the only industrial engineering company in China with completely independent intellectual property rights of belt roasting pellet core process and equipment, and through continuous iteration with a single production line of 1 million to 8 million service capacity, can provide stable and efficient, green, low-carbon, digital intelligent system solutions. As the cleanest process of blast-furnace charge making, this technology has significant advantages in reducing pre-iron pollution emissions and carbon dioxide emissions, and the process energy consumption of the project's total magnetite production is as low as 15kgce/t. At present, this technology has been applied in 20 production lines at home and abroad. Recently, the company won the second prize of the 2024 China Quality Association Quality Technology Award for its "Development and application of belt Roasting pellet Quality control Technology based on coupling of big data and simulation".

Renderings of Angang's first 4 million tons/year belt roasting machine production line contracted by Sinosteel International EPC

The company also has advanced technologies including sintering intelligent control system, non-power zero emission technology of ring cooler exhaust gas, heat recovery coke oven, 7.5m low energy consumption and low emission top load coke oven, which can provide more options for iron and steel enterprises to achieve clean and efficient, energy saving and consumption reduction.

Bold practice of low carbonization of blast furnace

Facing the global development situation of "carbon peak" and "carbon neutrality", traditional blast furnaces must be improved, optimized and innovative on the basis of existing process technology, and strive to achieve multiple goals such as low carbon, high efficiency, green and intelligent. In order to implement the vision of China Baowu to drive the green and low-carbon development of the steel ecosystem, the Baowu Baogang 430m3HyCROF (hydrogen-rich carbon cycle blast furnace) industrial test project and 2500m3HyCROF commercial demonstration project, which are contracted by the EPC of the company, have been put into operation. It will achieve the target of increasing the utilization coefficient of blast furnace by 40%, reducing the solid fuel ratio by 30%, and reducing the overall carbon emissions by more than 21%. HyCROF has the characteristics of low carbon, high efficiency, safety, stability, strong anti-fluctuation ability, and good matching with traditional manufacturing processes. As the general contractor, Sinosteel International has mastered key technologies such as design and safety control of top-burning gas heating furnace, gas compression and decarbonization, circulation gas and nitrogen balance, and opened up the whole HyCROF process, and expanded the original ultra-low carbon consumption of new technologies such as "HyCROF process + gas electric heating" and "HyCROF+ gas plasma heating". As a project leading the development direction of low carbon transformation of long process smelting blast furnace in the world steel industry, the success of HyCROF will lead the development direction of low carbon transformation of long process smelting blast furnace in the world steel industry, and provide practical green solutions for the steel industry to achieve carbon reduction.

Exploration and breakthrough of hydrogen metallurgy

Hydrogen metallurgy is generally considered to be the best solution for the low-carbon development of the steel industry. In the carbon neutral metallurgical technology roadmap of China Baowu, the hydrogen metallurgical process route with hydrogen base shaft furnace as the core is also an important carbon neutral process. As the earliest industrial engineering company in China to "go out", Sinosteel International tested the water "short process" as early as 2016, and has undertaken two 2.5 million tons of direct reduced iron (DRI) projects in Algeria. By participating in these two DRI projects with the highest single-line production capacity in the world, Sinosteel International not only became the first Chinese engineering and technology company to construct gas-based direct reduced iron projects, but also accumulated strong technical and engineering practical experience in the field of DRI, and found out more experience in shaft furnace body design and process package design.

The Zhanjiang million-ton hydrogen-based shaft furnace project, designed and built by Sinosteel International, can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 500,000 tons per year compared with the traditional blast furnace ironmaking process with the same scale of molten iron production.

Based on this, Sinosteel International participated in the hydrogen metallurgy project of Hesteel Xuangang, undertook the core technology integration of the Zhanjiang hydrogen-based shaft furnace project of China Baowu, and implemented new DRI projects in Algeria and Bolivia. In 2023, the first phase of the demonstration project of Zhangxuan High-tech Hydrogen Energy Development and Utilization Project of Hesteel Xuanxang realized the safe and smooth continuous production of green DRI products; At the end of the same year, Baowu Zhanjiang Iron and Steel million-ton hydrogen-based shaft furnace was put into operation, which is also the first set of million-ton hydrogen-based shaft furnace in China and the world's first set of multi-gas source adaptation using hydrogen. The project uses hydrogen-rich to all-hydrogen production of direct reduced iron, which reduces carbon by 60% to 90% compared to blast furnace hot metal. In the Zhanjiang Iron and Steel hydrogen-based shaft furnace project, Sinosteel International adopted digital design, and through research and development, realized the localization of resistant material design and supply of shaft furnace, and the localization rate of the total weight of the project equipment and facilities exceeded 70%. Recently, the Zhanjiang hydrogen-based shaft furnace project passed the weekly production function assessment, which has pioneering and exemplary significance for the steel industry to achieve the goal of "double carbon".

Process innovation Green change

"In terms of process innovation, we are using our own technology to build a green and low-carbon thin strip casting and rolling production line." Sinosteel International Chairman Lu Pengcheng said at the 2023 Global low-carbon Metallurgy Innovation Forum. Baostrip®, the thin strip casting and rolling technology independently developed by the company, is a near-final shape manufacturing technology with simpler layout, lower energy consumption, less emissions and less investment. The energy consumption per ton of steel in the whole process is only 1/5 of that of conventional hot continuous rolling, and the carbon dioxide emission is only 1/4 of that of conventional hot continuous rolling, which is an important starting point for iron and steel enterprises to achieve carbon reduction. The reliability of the technology has been fully verified in the industrial demonstration line of Ningbo Iron and Steel, and the product quality has been highly recognized by the market; At present, Sinosteel International is accelerating the construction of Shanxi Hongda green low-carbon thin strip casting and rolling project. Based on Baostrip's technical capabilities from key technology research and development, product design to production management, Sinosteel can also provide customers with short process green and low-carbon system solutions with the core of "electric furnace + thin strip casting and rolling".

Synergistic effect of pollution reduction and carbon reduction

Sinosteel Tiancheng Environmental Protection Technology Co., LTD. (hereinafter referred to as Sinosteel Tiancheng), a subsidiary of Sinosteel International focusing on air pollution control, has outstanding technical advantages in the comprehensive treatment of multi-pollutant environmental protection and energy saving in the steel industry, and has strong scientific research strength, and won two National Science and Technology Progress Awards in 2020. With a series of independent research and development technologies such as "ultra-low emission technology of steel kiln dust and fine particles", "sintering head flue gas bag dust removal technology", "unorganized emission control and collaborative treatment technology of delayed coking storage tank", Sinosteel Tiancheng has made outstanding contributions to the steel industry to achieve ultra-low emissions and win the blue sky defense war.

Among them, Sinosteel Tiancheng has made major breakthroughs in core technologies such as sintering head flue gas bag dust removal process, key purification equipment, filter materials and structural safety and fire prevention, formed a sintering head (pellet) flue gas bag dust removal technology and equipment with independent intellectual property rights, and completed the world's first set of demonstration project on Xinyu Iron and Steel 360 square meters sintering machine in 2021. The technology is recognized to reach the international leading level. So far, the independent technology of Sinosteel Tiancheng has been applied in several projects such as Laiigang Yinshan Steel 400㎡ and Guangxi Shenglong 2x320㎡ sintering machine. The system is stable and reliable, and the dust removal effect has reached the expectation. It will be applied to the flue gas bag dust removal project of the world's largest sintering machine head.

Carbon asset Management and consulting

The low-carbon development of the steel industry should adopt a mixed plan, and there are many ways to reduce carbon, but all of them are based on a clear grasp of the carbon emissions of the steel enterprises in their own processes. The company's Sinosteel Safety Environment Institute can provide professional carbon asset management and consulting services throughout the whole life cycle for government and enterprises, and provide systematic carbon emission management planning services. Sinosteel's business covers safety, environmental protection, green development, testing and inspection, and has the first batch of energy conservation and green development evaluation centers recognized by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. In recent years, Sinosteel has undertaken a number of provincial and municipal climate change planning, carbon peak action plan and evaluation, and low-carbon pilot declaration work.

Through continuous innovation in the field of low-carbon metallurgy, especially assuming the heavy responsibility of China Baowu's original low-carbon metallurgical technology engineering, Sinosteel International leads the low-carbon metallurgical track as a leading enterprise. At the same time, the company also strengthened extensive cooperation with scientific research institutes and international leading enterprises, jointly explored the key common technologies of low-carbon metallurgy, and promoted the research and application transformation of low-carbon cutting-edge technologies with independent intellectual property rights. At present, Sinosteel International has realized the advantageous technology coverage of the whole process of metallurgical engineering, and formed a low-carbon metallurgical engineering technology system with the core of low carbonization of blast furnace, belt roasting machine pellets, direct reduced iron, thin strip casting and rolling, efficient long material rolling, pollution reduction and carbon reduction synergistic efficiency, carbon asset management and consulting. Green engineering technology integration service capabilities continue to improve. Lu Pengcheng said: "Innovation-driven, for a long time, this is our confidence to lead the new track of green development, and it is also a source of confidence for us to continue to enhance core functions and enhance core competitiveness."

The iron and steel industry, as "industrial food", is an important cornerstone of the construction of a manufacturing power, and has witnessed the great leap of the motherland from standing up, getting rich to getting strong. The year 2024 marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, a key year for the implementation of the 14th Five-Year Plan, and a year for accelerating the green and low-carbon transformation of world industry. Sinosteel International will firmly grasp the strategic positioning of "taking scientific and technological innovation as the driving force, taking general engineering contracting as the main business, and comprehensively building a world-class technologically-oriented engineering company", unswervingly be "low-carbon metallurgical service providers, green development pioneers", accelerate green low-carbon transformation, and write a new chapter for the development of China's steel industry. Demonstrate the responsibility of Chinese enterprises in the process of green development of steel in the world!