Karachi: Tuwairqi Steel constructs furnace tower at Port Qasim

[Naveed Yaseen]

KARACHI: Tuwairqi Steel Mills Limited (TSML), Pakistan’s first private sector integrated steel manufacturing project, recently completed construction of a 107-metre-high Reduction Furnace Tower at the Bin Qasim Port, Karachi.

The completion of the tower has added another skyscraper to the industrial map of the country. TSML Director (Projects) Zaigham Adil Rizvi said “the project is progressing on fast track. Cold commissioning and subsequently hot commissioning with regular production is targeted in June. This is phase-I of the project while phase-II, which is electric arc furnace for production of billets/slabs, would also commence in 2009.”

The furnace tower employs the world’s most advanced Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) technology of Midrex Process owned by Kobe Steel of Japan. This environment-friendly and low consumption process has more than 67 per cent world market share in overall DRI production.

Phase-I of the project constitutes a DRI plant with capacity to produce 1.28 million tonnes of high-quality steel per annum and is targeted to be completed in the second quarter of current year.

Phase-II of the project, which consists of an electric arc furnace and continuous caster, is targeted for completion in 2011. As backward integration, a Pelletization plant with a capacity of 2.4 million tonnes has also been envisaged in the third phase of the project.

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