Construction of Phase II begins at Baosteel Zhanjiang

Baosteel Zhanjiang has begun its Phase II construction project.

All work will focus on its blast furnace 3.

Foundation piles have been driven in, and CISDI teams have taken up their positions at site. Its engineers, purchase managers, optimisation and sales staff are poised.

CISDI will implement the general design for Phase II and plant designs for the stockyard, blast furnace, continuous casting, 1,780mm hot strip mill and utilities.

Setting eco-friendly and intelligent benchmarks

Zhanjiang Steel is an important support for the regional economic development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, which is designated at national strategic level as a driver for high quality development.

Baosteel plans to utllise Zhanjiang Steel as a production capacity substitute for its sister company, Meishan Steel.

Zhanjiang Steel acts as not only a booster for Baowu Group’s steel restructuring and re-distribution, but also as model for China’s steel modernisation.  Phase II will be created to an even higher standard than Phase I.

Commented Xinku Fan, general manager of CISDI’s Consulting Business Division: “At Phase II, we have the opportunity to offset a few deficiencies experienced with Phase I’s plant-wide mass balance and hot and cold rolling output. We will be creating optimised performance indicators and enriching and improving product mix, and using our design, construction and operational expertise to ensure ultra-low emissions, to the strictest standard prevailing in China.”

“Full-process environmental protection technologies and equipment will enable the gas and dust collection systems to achieve ultra-low emission targets and zero liquid discharge”, said Mr Fan.

CISDI’s team plans to create a smart steelworks building and intelligent manufacturing equipment at Phase II to increase output without increasing the workforce.

Zhanjiang Steel will see a 30 per cent increase in production efficiency, and a cost reduction of US$10 per tonne of liquid steel when Phase II’s systems start up.

Building a better blast furnace

Blast furnace 3 needs to have a longer service life and be able to operate with higher environmental and intelligent performance figures, despite having a similar process configuration to blast furnaces 1 and 2.

Aware there was room for improvement on the twin blast furnaces, CISDI has carried out months of studies on process parameters, general layout, design and construction and proposed applications for an intelligent casthouse and hot stoves’ automatic combustion expertise. 

On launch of Phase II, Zhanjiang Steel will be producing 12.25 million tonnes of hot metal a year.

CISDI is organising engineering and pile testing work at the site and going all out to meet a 27-month construction deadline.

Piloting intelligent hot metal transport

CISDI is testing the critical technologies of the intelligent hot metal transport line at Zhanjiang Steel.

Preliminary design and primary tests have been completed over a six-month period. The site’s unmanned locomotive is now under testing to prove its operational capabilities during special meteorological conditions, heavy duty loads and in other complicated conditions.

Engineering manager Hui Liu explained: “Every day at this ironmaking plant, almost a hundred torpedo ladle cars transport metal at over 1,000 deg.C. It’s really a dangerous and complicated process. There is risk to workers, and the involvement of manpower can impede the locomotive’s efficiency, which causes a drop in hot metal temperature. This has a negative effect on production cost and quality control.”

To that end, CISDI has developed an unmanned locomotive, with intelligent scheduling and automatic hooking systems. When these intelligent products run online, transport efficiency can be enhanced by 20 per cent and the number of workers at the hot metal transport area can be reduced from 42 to nine.

By the end of this year, a test run of 28 torpedo ladle cars and eight unmanned locomotives will be carried out - a global first for the steel industry.

Zhanjiang Steel is on the way to intelligent logistics – less manpower, a number of unmanned stations and greater intelligence for a full logistics process from wharf to stockyard, from traffic to locomotive, and from access-in inventory to final product outbound.

A large number of CISDI engineers have been devoted to the site survey, design, construction, testing and commissioning for Zhanjiang Steel’s intelligence upgrade, with operational safety as a priority.

Practice BOS at stockyard

Zhanjiang Steel Phase II will build a blending stockyard as designed Model B. In the meantime, a Model C stockyard and two Model A stockyards will be modified.

Zhanjiang’s intelligent stockyard is a working model of CISDI’s blue ocean strategy (BOS).

As an initiator of intelligent stockyard expertise, CISDI has created a promising market. Zhanjiang Steel, Laiwu Steel, WISCO and Masteel in China, whatever Greenfield or Brownfield, are incorporating CISDI’s intelligent stockyard technology. CISDI engineer Quansheng Yang, who has played a major role in developing Zhanjiang’s intelligent stockyard, commented: “I am very proud to be applying my company’s technology to the building of this intelligent stockyard, which will be unique in my country.”

CISDI’s engineers, testing the intelligent hot metal transport line