Swedish steel specialist SSAB will start using liquefied natural gas (LNG) in its Raahe steel mill, with work on LNG storage facility to be completed in 2018.
SSAB will replace liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in the walking beam furnace in the strip mill and use LNG as support and additional fuel in the boiler in Raahe Voima’s power plant.
Use of LNG will enable SSAB to replace the use of oil-based fuels and thus reduce present levels of particulate, nitrogen and sulfur oxide, and carbon dioxide emissions. LNG will replace roughly 90 percent of the LPG used earlier at the mill, although LPG is still required for flame cutting, SSAB said in a statement.
Raahen Voima is currently building an LNG storage facility at SSAB Raahe. Two large LNG-tanks, 35 meters long and 6 meters in diameter, will arrive by road at the storage facility at the end of November. The Raahe LNG storage facility is delivered under turnkey contract by technology group Wärtsilä.
The LNG will be transported to Raahe by tanker trucks from Manga LNG Oy’s terminal in Tornio, northern Finland, with deliveries to start in early 2018.
Manga LNG, which owns the LNG terminal in Tornio, is a joint venture by Outokumpu, SSAB, Skangas and EPV Energia. SSAB has a 25 percent share in the terminal project.
The switch to using natural gas is part of SSAB’s strategy to make the energy system more sustainable, cost efficient and to spread the risk by using several different types of fuel. SSAB Borlänge swicthched over to using LNG a couple of years ago.