Future research of steel making as blast furnace & electrical arch (Case study: Esfahan steel company)

One of the most significant concerns for the professionals in the industries field including steel-making industry in all the nation throughout the history has been finding the optimum production processes. There are many factors such as technical and economic factors, the required various infra-structure facilities, and environmental issues etc. which play a part in selecting the desirable process. These numerous factors, in turn, indicate the complexity of the decision process. Furthermore, the world’s energy demand is increasing day by day so that it has become extremely critical for all the nations to take some effective measures to change their energy consumption pattern and energy exploitation methods in their way towards economic development. From the very beginning of steel industry, there has been an appropriate consensus over the development of the steel industry in Iran due to its rich availability of iron ore, gas and partly, coal deposits, but the selection of the most optimum option has always been one of the hotly debated issues among the practitioners and authorities in this field. During the recent years, a number of factors such as the demanding need to much lower initial investment, decreased production costs, reduced environmental pollution as well as increased scrap production has led to a growing development of steel-making process using the electric arc furnace (EAF) technology. In terms of energy efficiency and cost-effectiveness, the convertor-blast furnace method is considered as a superior process which requires coal and iron ores of high purity. As a result, steel mass production using this method will lead to the rapid consumption-up of high-purity raw materials. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to identify and examine the factors affecting the investment using two methods of steel-making based on futures techniques. The degree of significance for each variable was determined using data hierarchical analysis. Thereafter, the different possible conditions were studied by designing different scenarios and finally, using risk management method, investment risk for each scenario was assessed.