POSCO has finished building Korea's largest electric arc furnace (EAF) at its Gwangyang steelworks, with an annual capacity of 2.5 million tons. The furnace uses scrap metal instead of iron ore and coal, cutting carbon emissions by about 75 percent compared to traditional blast furnaces. The project cost roughly 600 billion won and involved 270,000 person-days of labor. The company plans to use this EAF to produce high-grade steel for automotive and electrical applications by 2030. It is also developing hot metal mixing technology to blend molten iron from both EAFs and blast furnaces, aiming to maintain product quality while lowering emissions. This move aligns with global decarbonization policies and customer demand for low-carbon steel.
