Treasure Steelworks Corporation Energizes Iligan Steel Plant

TKC Steel Corporation announced the forthcoming completion of its major capacity and capability enhancement project with the commissioning work of the first blast furnace in Iligan City.  This is the first of two blast furnace modules undertaken by subsidiary, Treasure Steelworks Corporation (TSC).

The Iligan City blast furnace is scheduled for cold testing to ensure all components of the system will function properly when the facility is energized next week.

Upon confirmation of cold testing results, the facility will be scheduled for hot testing and actual firing soon thereafter. With the full operation of its blast furnace, TSC expects to improve its capability to produce steel from indigeneous iron ore, thereby completing the first fully integrated steel mill in the Philippines.

Support facilities earlier set-up by TSC will complement the blast furnace to ensure adequate raw material supply for efficient production of steel products. These include the ore beneficiation plant and the power generation plant which is expected to help alleviate the power supply shortage in Mindanao.

Treasure Steelworks Fires New Furnace

Manila. Sept 3, 2009. Treasure Steelworks, a subsidiary of TKC Steel Corporation, has commissioned its new Eccentric Bottom Tapping Electric Arc Furnace (EBT-EAF) as part of its capacity and capability enhancement projects.

Full commercial operation of the new facility is expected to start as soon as the series of tests for direct charging of beneficiated iron core are completed.
As part of the strategic plan of TKC Steel, it is testing the use of locally sourced iron ora processed from its beneficiating facility as raw material for its furnaces. Scrap metal is fast becoming scarce and costly. But the country has more than enough supply of iron ore to meet the TKC subsidiary's total present and future requirements.

Initial test results from the use of beneficiated local iron ore are said to be encouraging. They indicated substantial cost savings and improved yields of melted steel that the company is confident that it will be able to arrive at the optimum mixture of materials and additives that will reduce its dependence on scrap.

The capacity of the new furnace is 50MT per heat. This increases Treasure Steelworks' annual production output of billets by about 15%. The new facility is also equipped with the latest supersonic oxygen injector that would further improve production output.

Together with the newly commissioned ladle furnace and the newly installed iron ore beneficiating facility, the billet manufacturing shop of Treasure Steel will be the most modern facility in the Philippines, equal to similar modern plants in the ASEAN region.

Source: TKC Steel Press Release