Coke
We operate one coking plant through our wholly-owned subsidiary OKK. The Svoboda plant is located in near proximity to our mines. The facility produces both foundry and blast furnace coke primarily from coking coal from our mines, with the remainder imported from Poland.
Coke is produced by heating the coking coal in furnaces at temperatures of up to 1,200°C, to extract volatile components such as gases, and produce a highly efficient, high carbon fuel. Our steel customers use our blast furnace coke as a reducing agent in smelting iron ore in the process of making steel. Our foundry coke is used by the iron founding industry to melt pig iron that is then used to make iron castings. Traditionally, foundry coke commands higher prices in the market.
NWR is No. 1 producer of foundry coke in Europe.
In 2011 NWR produced 770 kilo tonnes of coke. External sales volumes of coke in 2011 were 555 kilo tonnes, consisting of approximately 23 per cent of blast furnace coke, 67 per cent of foundry coke and 10 per cent of other applications.
Read more about coke on the OKK´s website.
Coke customers 2011 by sales volumes