Current State of Ferroalloys Production in Russia and CIS

The development of ferroalloys production directly depends on the progress in the steel industry. Therefore, an increase in steel production inevitably entails an increase in the production of ferroalloys. The global steel production has increased by about 30% in the past decade. This article discusses the general condition of the ferroalloy sector in the CIS countries and, in particular, in Russia. The main consumers of ferroalloy products in the domestic markets among Russian metallurgical enterprises are listed, and the structure of production and consumption in other producing economies (China, India, the EU, the United States, Japan) is examined. It is revealed that the overproduction of ferroalloys in the CIS is nearly 400%. In addition, the ways of developing the ferroalloy sector are considered, that is, aimed at reducing the share of ore raw materials, reducing agent, and electricity in the production cost, which is achieved by using cheaper ore, applying new types of processes and outfits, and designing alternative ferroalloys to replace their conventional counterparts. One of such novelties is smelting in DC furnaces, which allows using unprepared fine chrome ore as a raw material instead scarce lump ore in combination with a cheap fine reducing agent (anthracite) for ferrochrome production. Another promising technology is melting in an oxygen reactor by postcombustion with gaseous oxygen released with the reduction of carbon monoxide inside the outfit. In addition, alternative kinds of ferroalloy products can gain ground, such as KAUR calcium carbon which can replace calcium carbide in steelmaking.


INTRODUCTION
Ferroalloys play an important role in producing HQ steels used in construction and infrastructure (52%), machine building (16%), automotive industry (12%), metalwork production (10%), electric equipment production (3%), domestic appliances (2%), and in other sectors (5%) [1]. An increase in steel production inevitably entails an increase in the production of ferroalloys. In its respect, the progress of the ferroalloy sector is determined mainly by the condition of the steelmaking sector [2][3][4]. In 2019, the global steelmaking output was 1869.9 mln t. The total increment in production output relative to the 1808.6 mln t in 2018 was 3.4%. The top steelmaking country is China, with the steelmaking output of 996.3 mln t. In Russia, the steelmaking output in 2019 was 71.6 mln t, which by 0.6% lower than in 2018 (72 mln t) [5]. In the other CIS countries, the respective steelmaking outputs in 2019/2018 were 20.8/21.1 (-1.4%) mln t in Ukraine, 4.1/4 mln t (+2.5%) in Kazakhstan, 2.7/2.5 mln t (+8%) in Belarus, 625000/646000 t (-3.3%) in Uzbekistan, and 360000/497000 (-27.6%) in Moldova. Thus, the total steelmaking output in the CIS countries was 100.4 mln t, a reduction by 0.5 relative to the figures for 2018 (100.9 mln t) [6].

GENERAL CONDITION OF FERROALLOY PRODUCTION
IN CIS COUNTRIES In Russia, the main consumers of ferroalloys have traditionally included such big metallurgical combines, as Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK), EVRAZ, Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works (MMK), Severstal, Metalloinvest, and Mechel. These enterprises consume more than 90% of the bulk manganese, silicon, and chromium alloys sold in this country. The remaining 10% are consumed by big pipe producers, including Pipe Metallurgical Co. OJSC (TMK), United Metallurgical Company (OMK), Chelyabinsk Tube Rolling Plant (ChelPipe), and other metallurgical enterprises [7]. In 2018, the total amount of ferroalloys consumed by Russian enterprises was 850000 t (Table 1).
In 2018, the overall ferroalloys produced at the 25 ferroalloy plants in the CIS countries was about 4.8 mln t, and the top producing countries were Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Georgia (see Fig. 1). The main CIS companies producing bulk ferroalloys are Chelyabinsk Electrometallurgical Plant (CHEMK) (Russia), ERG (Kazakhstan), and Privat (Ukraine).
In the CIS countries, the ferroalloy output amounts to 4.8 mln t, that is, nearly four times as much as the domestic consumed output of 1.087 mln t ( Table 2). Russia's share in the overall ferroalloy output is about 35% (1.67 mln t). In its respect, CHEMK produces 75% of ferroalloys in Russia.
In 2018, the ferroalloy production pattern was joined by Uzbekistan. A ferroalloy shop was launched as part of AO Uzmetcombinat in Bekabad [11,12]. The shop's design capacity is 25000 t of ferroalloys, including 15000 t of ferrosilicon and 10000 of ferromanganese. The raw materials used in their production are local quartzites from the Kokpatas field and imported manganese ore. About 30% (8000 t) ferroalloys are planned to be exported.
In Russia, the domestic steel consumption pattern is not particularly favorable to ferroalloy production. About 65% of production falls to low alloy steels. In addition, in 2019, Russia's stainless steel output was 106000 t, that is, only 0.15% of the overall steel output (56.3 mln t). Meanwhile, the amount of stainless steel imports to Russia is about 380000 t, which is by 250% higher than the domestic output. Russia also exports about 8000 t of stainless steel, that is, about 8% of the output. Henceforth, in Russia, the growth in stainless steel production can favorably influence the development of the domestic market for ferroalloys because the Russian market for silicon, manganese, and, to a greater extent, chromium alloys can easily meet production demands.
However, according to statistics of the International Stainless Steel Forum (ISSF) in 2020, the global stainless steel output (in the CIS countries included) may reach the four-year low of about 48 mln and, therefore, drop by about 7% [13]. This will directly affect the ferroalloy market pattern.

FERROALLOY PRODUCTION SCENARIOS
One of the main promising trends in the production of ferroalloys is a reduction in the production prime cost.
The key component of the prime cost pattern in the melting of silicon ferroalloys is the electricity costs, whereas the ore costs are minimal. An opposite situation is observed for chromium and manganese ferroalloys. This is why silicon ferroalloys stir the greatest interest among the producers. For the prime cost pattern of bulk ferroalloys, see Table 3.
The conventional prime cost pattern for all kinds of bulk ferroalloys usually includes 40% of electricity, 40% of ore and coke, and 20% of other components [14]. As for now, the respective prime cost patterns of silicon alloys and manganese and chromium alloys have changed towards an increase in the electricity fraction (to about 50%) and in the role of ore costs (to about 60%).
One of the ways of making the production of ferroalloys in the CIS countries more competitive is to reduce the share of ore, reducing agent, and electricity in the prime cost pattern, which is attained by using cheaper raw materials, new types of processes and outfits, and developing other kinds of ferroalloys to replace their classical counterparts.
For example, in the case of putting the ferrosilicon plants in Yurga (Russia) and Karaganda (Kazakhstan) into operation, the main novelty was the complete replacement of coke with coal and the opportunity to recover the heat of outlet gases from the ore-smelting furnace [15].
The technology that has recently gained use is DC ferroalloy melting [16][17][18][19]. It allows replacing scarce lump ore with its fine unprepared counterpart combined with a fine cheap reducing agent (anthracite), which significantly cuts down the prime cost of chromium ferroalloys. The Kazchrom company using innovative 72 mVA DC ferroalloy furnaces has brought smelter shop 4 of the Aktobe ferroalloy plant (AFAP) into operation and run it almost to the design capacity. These furnaces are the most powerful ferroalloy furnaces around the globe. In addition, the AFAP makes use of extrusion-type pelletizing for recovering chromium-containing dust in AC furnaces [20,21].
In Russia, the cheapening of noble ferroalloys and depletion of amenable iron reserves has resulted in the complete termination of the production of nickel ferroalloys from oxidized nickel ores and a decline in the smelting of molybdenum ferroalloys [22].
The revival of this production requires developing and adopting new technologies of treating available ore raw materials. One of such developments is the melting in the BOF, proposed by NUST MISiS in [23] and based on using gaseous oxygen to completely burn the carbon oxide released during the reduction processes inside the outfit itself. This technology exponentially cuts the expenses for supplying electricity to maintain physical chemical processes.
Unconventional kinds of alloying metals are gaining ground, first of all, commercial metal carbides and easy-to-melt compounds, including silicon and calcium carbides. The cheaper raw materials and production technology make a unit of the master element cheaper than in conventional ferroalloys, whereas the applications are almost identical. One of these new ferroalloys is the KAUR carbonaceous carbide [24]. Like calcium carbide, this calcium is made in electric furnaces. KAUR is a homogenic alloy of calcium carbide CaC 2 with an easy-to-melt CaO · Al 2 O 3 fluxing material. This allows increasing the absorption degree of oxygen by steel and synchronously developing desulphurization and eliminating nonmetallic impurities with formed free-running calciferous aluminous slag. This deoxidizer makes the steel teemable and more processable, replaces Al at primary deoxidation at a ratio of 1 to 1, as well as expensive calcium silicon and metallic calcium in ladle processing.

CONCLUSIONS
The peculiarity of the ferroalloys production in the CIS countries is almost a quadruple excess of ferroalloy output over the domestic consumption demand in the steelmaking domain. The recent few years have also witnessed changes in the prime cost pattern of siliceous ferroalloys towards an increase in the electricity contribution (about 50%) and in the prime cost pattern of manganese and chromium towards an increase in the prime cost of ore (about 60%). A rational way of resolving issues in ferroalloy production is the adoption of new promising technologies, that would allow cutting down the prime cost of produced output, and the elaboration of new efficient ferroalloys.