voestalpine Sponge Iron Plant Shifts into Operating Mode
05/10/2017 - voestalpine's new hot-briquetted iron plant in Corpus Christi, Texas, USA, is now fully operational, and its final cost came in about US$10 million more than its last estimate, the steelmaker anounced Wednesday.
voestalpine put the final cost at US$1.01 billion. The last estimate, issued in January 2017, put the cost at US$990 milion.
“The increase is the result of finishing work at the plant,” the company said in a statement.
voestalpine said the plant became fully operational on 1 April, following a six-month ramp-up and completion of performance tests.
“The plant has already achieved a positive result in its first month of full operation,” the company said.
The sponge iron plant is designed to produce 2 million metric tons annually, about 40% of which will be used to supply voestalpine’s Austrian facilities in Linz and Donawitz. The remainder is being sold to customers in North America and Europe. Many of those customers, and voestalpine’s mills, already have received test batches, voestalpine said.
