Per: MATHEUS AUGUSTO SANTOS VIEIRA (APERAM), Clinger Félix Santiago (APERAM), Douglas Vinicius Ferreira Castro (APERAM), Janaina de Oliveira Maia (APERAM), Péricles Guimarães Oliveira Aguiar (aperam), Raphael Felippe Miranda de Oliveira (aperam), Victoria Caroline Veloso Meireles (APERAM)
Abstract:
In recent years, the increase in Brazilian crude steel production has caused a shortage of iron ore and pellets, driving up their prices. This created the need to develop new sources of these inputs and study flexibility in production processes to deal with different materials. Pellets represent 65% of the matallic charge in Aperam's Blast Furnaces and 72% of it is used in Blast Furnace 2. Until 2021, only one type of pellet was used due to differences in chemical, physical and metallurgical qualities, limiting supply to a single supplier. The objective was to increase the flexibility of the Blast Furnace 2 load and eliminate dependence on this supplier and, in the results, there were no significant changes in the process variables, indicating that the use of a mix of pellets did not affect operational stability and productivity. However, there were notable benefits such as greater flexibility and negotiating power, loading options in case of pellet shortages, and budgetary flexibility.