POSCO said on the 17th that it has completed a large electric arc furnace in Gwangyang, South Jeolla, with an annual production capacity of 2.5 million tons (t).

POSCO announces on the 17th that it completes a large electric arc furnace in Gwangyang, South Jeolla Province, with an annual capacity of 2.5 million tons./Courtesy of POSCO

At the electric arc furnace completion ceremony held at the Gwangyang Works that day, Prime Minister Kim Min-seok, POSCO Group Chairman Chang In-hwa, and POSCO President Lee Hee-geun attended.

The newly completed electric arc furnace is the largest in Korea for a single facility, with a construction workforce of 270,000 people per year and an investment of about 600 billion won. POSCO said it began building the new furnace in Feb. 2024 to respond to decarbonization policies at home and abroad and customer demand for low-carbon steel products.

POSCO said electric arc furnaces produce steel by recycling steel scrap and can reduce carbon emissions by up to 75% compared with blast furnaces. The "blast furnace–basic oxygen furnace" method, which produces molten iron by feeding iron ore and coal into a blast furnace and then refines it in a basic oxygen furnace, enables mass production of high-quality steel but has the drawback of high carbon emissions.

POSCO says the electric arc furnace method, which recycles steel scrap during steelmaking, can reduce carbon emissions by up to about 75% compared to the blast furnace method./Courtesy of POSCO

POSCO said it has established technology to precisely control composition in the processes of selecting, sorting, and refining steel scrap, the main raw material, and plans to mass-produce automotive steel sheets and electrical steel sheets by 2030. To that end, POSCO selected premium grades made with electric arc furnaces as "eight strategic products." It also plans to develop low-carbon steel technologies, including "blast furnace hydrogen-containing gas injection," which injects gas containing hydrogen.

POSCO is also developing "hot metal blending technology" to improve the quality of products made with electric arc furnaces. The blending technology mixes and refines molten iron produced in electric arc furnaces and blast furnaces. It can produce premium grades while lowering carbon dioxide emissions compared with the blast furnace production method.

At the ceremony, Chairman Chang In-hwa said, "The electric arc furnace is not simply an addition of a single facility but an expression of a strong will to solve the era's task of decarbonization and change the global market landscape," adding, "We will proactively respond to global customers' demand for low-carbon steel and further solidify our status as a leading future materials company."

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