Financial Tribune- Mobarakeh Steel Company signed its first foreign investment deal worth $7.53 million with Finland’s Ecofer.

The deal, based on a build-operate-transfer contract, entails Ecofer providing the Iranian steelmaker with the required technology and machinery for cold and hot electric arc furnace slag processing.

“Ecofer will supply the equipment needed for processing 1.25 million tons of slag per year. After operating them [and using MSC’s EAF slag] for five years, all the machinery must be handed over to MSC with no extra costs,” said Mehdi Toolayian, MSC’s purchasing manager.

Ecofer is an engineering and supplying company of equipment for iron and steel industry with a particular focus on slag processing. The company says its slag processing and metal recovery plants are delivered fully assembled and ready to run.

This is a particularly beneficial deal for MSC, as the company takes care of its production waste and protects the environment in the process.

“Through slag processing, the valuable metal mixed in with slag in steel production can be recycled back into the steel mill’s manufacturing process,” said Farzad Arzani, MSC’s technology manager.

Slag is a valuable resource for any steelmaker. Integrated steelmakers sell blast furnace slag, which is naturally cementitious in quality, into the cement industry. In addition, the slag from the basic oxygen steelmaking plant such as converter slag and ladle slag has useful properties once weathered to allow for expansion of the lime-bearing material.

EAF slag is a strong and durable material that is highly versatile and ideally suited for use as an aggregate in many applications.

The steelmaker benefits from slag recycling by avoiding the cost of landfill. The community benefits, too.

Slag is a manmade material; therefore its use instead of a natural aggregate product avoids the environmental footprint from quarrying.

Today, together with its subsidiaries, MSC is the largest flat steel producer in the Middle East and North Africa region and Iran’s largest steelmaker, accounting for 1% of Iran’s GDP.

The company accounts for approximately 50% of the country’s total steel output and also holds around the same share from domestic flat steel consumption, which stood at around 7.5 million tons in the last fiscal year (March 2015-16). The company produced around 5.5 million tons of flat products during the period.