Our Process

Proximity to Kafue river as a source of water and the Kafue Gorge hydro-electric power station for electricity, its nearness to a reliable iron ore deposit at Sanje, easy access to a well developed infrastructure like the Great North road and the Copperbelt/Livingstone railway line for the supply of raw materials like coal and the delivery of steel products to the market, and availability of skilled and semi-skilled labour coupled with housing and social amenities, convinced UMCIL to re-visit the project and set the steel mill at Kafue.

THE IISP PRODUCTION TECHNOLOGY:

UMCIL is adopting well known iron and steel technologies in the manufacture of iron and steel products as per
the dictates of the types and quality of raw materials and utilities available in Zambia.

The IISP technology concerns the manufacture of iron and steel products from the cradle to production
of rolled products and involves the integration of five different iron and steel environmentally clean technologies that are available on the world market today, namely:

The mining of the Sanje Hill iron ore initially through the mountaintop mining and then open pit mining for the
sub-surface deposit.
The SL/RN coal-based direct reduction process for the conversion of iron oxide ore with coal around
1000 degrees C into sponge iron or direct reduced iron (DRI);
The Danieli electric arc furnace steel making process involves melting the DRI together with scraps above
1600 degrees C, refining the raw steel melt into steel of required grade (composition) and continuously casting the steel into billets in a continuous-casting machine.
The SMT rolling process to roll the steel ingots into various profiles and length as per market specification following its softening of at 1000 degrees C in a re-heating furnace.