Tehran, Iran, December 17
By Mehdi Sepahvand –- Trend:
This year Iran unveiled a new, indigenously developed method to reduce iron which seems to be growing into a source of engineering service export for the country, according to the deputy minister for mining.
Called PERED, or Persian Reduction, the technology is invented and patented by MME Co., an Iranian engineering company registered in Germany.
Mehdi Karbasian, who is also the CEO of the Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization (IMIDRO), told Trend December 17 that PERED has ended the monopoly of Midrex technology (developed in the United States and brought to Iran by Japanese firms) over iron ore processing in Iran.
“This year two projects, one in Mianeh and another in Shadegan, came on stream using this technology. Another project in Neiriz is going to be inaugurated in one month,” Karbasian said.
He said the technology can prove attractive in Iran and the neighboring markets, adding that if pricing and other competition factors are set rightly, PERED will find customers.
Iran has long relied on its cheap energy costs and abundance of raw materials to sustain its steel industry, having to forego development of new technologies due to years of stringent international sanctions over its nuclear program. But now, with the adoption of a new, indigenous direct-reduced iron production method, the country’s steelmakers can count on increasing competitiveness.
The technology, which makes optimum use of energy and raw materials, reduces production costs with the added advantage of being more environment-friendly compared to other direct reduction methods.
According to IMIDRO, PERED improves reduces dust creation from 1.45 to 1.24 ton per ton/DRI, reduces gas consumption from between 2.5 and 2.8 to 2.4-2.7 gcal/ton DRI, improve power efficiency from 100-130 to 100-120 kwh/ton DRI, lessen water consumption from 1-1.5 to 0.9-1.4 m3/ton DRI, furnace efficiency from 9.5-10 to 10-10.5 ton/day-m3, lessen maintenance costs from 4.3 to 3.9 euro/ton DRI, and lessen need for manpower from 0.45 to 0.40 man-hour/ton DRI.