Sun Coke Technology Rises, as Construction Begins on New Metallurgical Coke Plant

---

Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). A new metallurgical coke plant is being built in the U.S. Impossible, you say, but that is exactly what is happening in Haverhill, Ohio (PEC 10002046). In fact, Sun Coke Company (Knoxville, Tennessee), a subsidiary of Sunoco Incorporated (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) began construction in December on the first phase of a potential three-phased, $420 million metallurgical coke plant.

According to Joseph Govreau, Manager of Metals and Minerals for Industrialinfo.com, "Sun Coke has been looking to build a metallurgical coke plant in Haverhill for some time. We've been tracking this project since 1998, and it's taken six years to get the economics right. Originally, now defunct steel producer, LTV Steel and Sun Coke proposed construction of a plant in Pittsburgh to replace a plant LTV had closed down prior to 1998, but that deal fell through. Then the site in southern Ohio became attractive due to logistical synergies with an existing Sunoco phenol manufacturing complex (Plant 1503712), and talks began with LTV to construct a plant in Haverhill. LTV's troubles and a poor steel market doomed the initial Haverhill project. Now, with improved economics, and a contract with International Steel Group (ISG), Sun Coke can finally proceed with the southern Ohio coke plant."

Sun Coke's heat recovery technology provides environmental, and economical benefits, such as the implementation of cogeneration, making it the technology of choice over older chemical byproduct technology. Cogeneration will not be part of the first phase of the project, but may be implemented in subsequent phases.

Metallurgical coke is the main fuel for blast furnaces at integrated steel mills and is used at seventeen mills in the U.S. A few years ago, the idea of a new coke plant in the U.S. would have been unheard of, as a number of U.S. integrated steel producers went bankrupt and shut down blast furnaces. This caused about seven coke plants to shutdown. As a result in the last two years, as companies like ISG and U.S. Steel stepped in to revive closed integrated steel operations, the demand for coke rose, however supply wasn't there to meet it. This led to an increase in coke prices and shortages in some cases.

Upon completion, Haverhill North Coke Company, a subsidiary of Sun Coke will utilize 800,000 tons per year of coal to produce about 550,000 tons per year of screened blast furnace coke for ISG's Cleveland Steel Works, under a long-term agreement. Sunoco will sell about 450,000 pounds per hour of steam to Sunoco's adjacent phenol manufacturing plant.

Sun Coke selected Kokosing Construction Company (Westerville, Ohio) as the general contractor for the project. Electrical and mechanical work is scheduled to begin in July for the first $140 million phase involving 100 ovens. The second and third phase will bring the total number of coke ovens up to 400 at a total capital cost of about $420 million.

Sun Coke currently produces approximately two million tons of coke per year at two U.S. plants. In 1997, the company began construction on what is now the Indiana Harbor Coke Company located in East Chicago, Indiana (Plant 1030963). The plant was built on 95 acres adjacent to the No. 7 blast furnace at Ispat Inland's (at that time Inland Steel) Indiana Harbor Works (Plant 1009276). Coke gas byproduct is piped to an adjacent 95 megawatt cogeneration plant (Plant 1030965) owned by Primary Energy Incorporated (Oakbrook, Illinois) and is the first cogeneration project using heat recovery boilers from non-recovery coke batteries.

The other plant, operated by the Sun Coke subsidiary Jewell Coal and Coke, is located in Vansant, Virginia (Plant 1034796).

Sun Coke is the only company building coke plants in the U.S. these days. Prior to the construction of Sun Coke's East Chicago plant in 1997, the last coke plant to be constructed in the U.S. was ISG's (formerly LTV's) Warren Coke plant (Plant 1049260), which was commissioned in 1979.

Sun Coke is also in the process of constructing a $300 million metallurgical coke plant (PEC 67000580)in Vitoria Serra, Brazil. Ferrostaal do Brazil (Sao Paulo, Brazil) is the engineering, procurement, and construction management firm involved with the project.

For more information on the U.S. steel industry see January 9, 2004, archived IIR Industry Alert: Overview of Domestic Steel Manufacturing Trends Going into 2004. This article and hundreds of other archived steel industry articles are available as part of Industrialinfo.com's Premium News Subscription