Material Balance

At Kobe Steel, 95% of the energy usage is in the Iron & Steel Business. In fiscal 2013, this business unit used 11.55 million tons of iron ore, 6.16 million tons of coking coal and coke, 11PJ^*1 of fuels such as coal, oil and municipal gas, and 930,000 MWh of purchased power. Nearly all of the byproduct gases — including coke oven gas, blast furnace gas and converter gas — derived from production processes are effectively reused as fuel for reheating steel or for use in in-house power plants. Kobe Steel also proactively implements power generation that utilizes waste heat. Combined with the power generated from byproduct gases, over 60% of the power required by production processes is generated through energy recovery.

Insofar as possible, byproducts produced during production processes, such as steel slag^*2, dust and sludge, are also turned to effective use as raw materials in applications such as cement and roadbeds. Together with in-company re-use, 98% of byproducts are recycled in this manner.

In the future, Kobe Steel will continue to pursue environmentally friendly practices throughout all aspects of its operations, striving for more efficient use of resources and energy and advancing the development of new technologies to that end.

*1 1PJ=10¹⁵J
*2 Slag is recovered from molten pig iron during refining. (It is also called blast furnace slag, steelmaking slag, etc.).

Using metal wires, hoops, fluxes, soluble glass and other raw materials, the Welding Business produces welding electrodes and welding wires. In fiscal 2013 the Fujisawa, Ibaraki, Saijo and Fukuchiyama plants used a combined 180,000 tons of raw materials, 65,000 MWh of electricity, and 0.2PJ of municipal gas and other fuels to manufacture 170,000 tons worth of products. This generated 17,000 tons of byproducts, of which 98% was successfully recycled.

Using ingots and scrap as raw materials, the Aluminum & Copper Business produces a variety of aluminum and copper products. In fiscal 2013 the business unit used 380,000 tons of raw materials, 450,000 MWh of electricity, and 3.5PJ of municipal gas and other fuels to create 340,000 tons of products.

During melting and casting, 24,000 tons of waste products, such as slag, dust and wastewater sludge, were produced. However, 96% of this waste was successfully recycled.