Hyundai Steel's US mill to cut carbon emissions 70% vs. blast furnace

Low-carbon auto steel sheets to enter mass production from 2029

Natural gas used to directly reduce iron ore via carbon and hydrogen

Carbon-reduction technology to be applied domestically toward 2050 neutrality goal

An electric arc furnace at Hyundai Steel's Incheon factory [Hyundai Steel]

Hyundai Steel plans to use its joint venture electric arc furnace mill in Louisiana — Hyundai Steel-Posco Louisiana Steel (HPLS) — as a springboard for its transition to low-carbon steelmaking. The company aims to sharply reduce carbon emissions compared with conventional blast furnace operations through an integrated process running from direct reduced iron (DRI) production to finished automotive steel. It also intends to accelerate its push toward hydrogen-based ironmaking by gradually replacing the natural gas used in iron ore reduction with hydrogen.

According to Hyundai Steel, HPLS will be built on a roughly 73.7 million-square-meter site in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, with an annual production capacity of 2.7 million tons of steel products. The company plans to begin mass-producing low-carbon automotive steel sheets from 2029 and supply them to North America, the EU and other markets.

HPLS's defining feature is its fully integrated process — from raw material production to finished product — in which DRI is produced on-site and fed directly into electric arc furnaces. The mill will house a direct reduction plant (DRP) for DRI production, a steelmaking shop equipped with electric arc furnaces, refining furnaces and continuous casting equipment, a hot-rolling mill, and a cold-rolling mill that will produce cold-rolled and coated steel sheets.

The DRP is central to the low-carbon production model. Conventional blast furnaces use coal to reduce iron ore into pure iron, whereas the DRP blows natural gas through iron ore, using the carbon and hydrogen in the gas to strip away oxygen.

A diagram showing the facility layout of Hyundai Steel's US electric arc furnace mill. [Hyundai Steel]

Blast furnaces rely on an "indirect reduction" process in which carbon monoxide — generated when coal's carbon reacts with oxygen — reduces the iron ore. The DRP, by contrast, applies "direct reduction," using natural gas to strip oxygen directly from solid iron ore. Because hydrogen in the natural gas also participates in the reduction process, the method produces significantly less carbon dioxide than a blast furnace.

The DRI produced in the DRP is charged into electric arc furnaces together with steel scrap and converted into molten steel. Hyundai Steel expects this process to cut carbon emissions by about 70 percent compared with molten steel produced at its blast furnace facility in Dangjin.

Another distinguishing feature is the direct physical connection between the DRP and the electric arc furnaces within the same plant. Running the two processes continuously — from raw material production through furnace charging — reduces energy consumption and improves production efficiency.

The higher proportion of DRI in the charge mix also makes the mill better suited to producing high-grade steel than conventional scrap-based electric arc furnace operations. Precision refining equipment will be used to minimize impurities such as nitrogen and sulfur that affect product performance, while carbon dioxide generated in the DRP will be managed through carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems.

Hyundai Steel plans to extend the low-carbon production technologies developed at HPLS to its domestic operations. The US electric arc furnace mill is set to serve as a forward base on the company's path to carbon neutrality.

Over the longer term, the company aims to shift to renewable energy across its production processes and progressively replace the natural gas used in the DRP with hydrogen, with a target of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.

"The US electric arc furnace mill carries great significance as a means of accumulating the technology needed to transition to a low-carbon production system," Hyundai Steel President Lee Bo-ryong said at a town hall meeting with employees in June. "We plan to produce low-carbon automotive steel sheets and supply them on a priority basis to automakers in the Americas."

eyre@heraldcorp.com