Steelmaker completes Korea's largest electric arc furnace, launches rare gas plant
Posco Group Chairman Chang In-hwa (center right), Prime Minister Kim Min-seok (center left) and other key executives and officials pose for a photo at the completion ceremony of a new electric arc furnace at Posco’s Gwangyang plant in South Jeolla Province on Wednesday. (Posco Group)
Posco on Wednesday completed South Korea's largest electric arc furnace and launched a high-purity rare gas production plant, advancing its push into low-carbon steelmaking and strategic semiconductor materials.
The company held a completion ceremony for its new electric arc furnace in Gwangyang, South Jeolla Province, attended by Prime Minister Kim Min-seok, Posco Group Chairman Chang In-hwa and other government and company officials.
Built with an investment of about 600 billion won ($400 million), the furnace has annual production capacity of 2.5 million metric tons, making it the largest facility of its kind in Korea.
Posco said the project marks a key step in its decarbonization strategy. Unlike the conventional blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace process, which relies on iron ore and coking coal, electric arc furnaces use recycled steel scrap and can cut carbon emissions by up to 75 percent.
The steelmaker is also developing a molten iron blending technology known as "haptang," which combines molten iron produced by electric arc and blast furnaces. The process is designed to lower emissions while maintaining the quality required for premium products such as automotive and electrical steel. Posco aims to begin mass production using the technology by 2030.
The facility is expected to serve as a bridge toward Posco's longer-term hydrogen-based steelmaking road map. The company plans to commercialize its HyRex hydrogen-reduction steelmaking technology by 2030 through a demonstration plant with annual capacity of 300,000 tons, before gradually transitioning to hydrogen-based production by 2050.
"The electric arc furnace demonstrates our commitment to addressing the global challenge of decarbonization and reshaping the future competitiveness of the steel industry," Chang said.
On the same day, Posco Air Solution, the group's industrial gas unit, began operations at a high-purity rare gas plant in Gwangyang, marking Posco's entry into the semiconductor and aerospace materials business.
The facility can produce 130,000 normal cubic meters of xenon, krypton and neon annually, enough to meet about 52 percent of domestic demand for rare gases used in semiconductor manufacturing, according to the company.
The gases are extracted from oxygen plants at Posco's steelworks and refined for use in semiconductor lithography and etching processes, as well as aerospace and medical applications.
Posco said the plant will strengthen Korea's supply-chain resilience by reducing dependence on imported rare gases, which are considered critical materials for advanced industries.
"The ability to produce and stably supply key materials for the semiconductor and aerospace industries with our own technology is highly meaningful," Chang said.
The company plans to expand further into specialty gases, leveraging synergies with its steelmaking operations and gas purification technologies to build a broader high-value industrial gas business.
hyejin2@heraldcorp.com
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