Future proof business

Use of materials

We handled in total 719,000 tonnes of direct materials during 2018 to produce more than 500,000 tonnes of products and 155,000 tonnes of process side-stream materials. Our largest raw materials are non-renewable in the sense that they are extracted from the earth’s crust. These materials are mainly iron ore, limestone and fossil process coal or coke.

An initiative is ongoing to replace fossil process coal with renewable alternatives.

Read more about the project

Metals can be recycled innumerous times, and approximately 50 percent of our raw materials base consists of secondary, or recycled materials. Our largest material type by weight is iron-based scrap, which amounted to more than 350,000 purchased tonnes in 2018. Iron based scrap together with other secondary materials represented 29 percent of total purchased materials. Secondary materials include both pre- and post-consumer scrap.

The packaging material amounted to 2,340 tonnes, of which 7 percent was renewable material.

Raw materials, tonnes	2018	2017
Secondary materials, metal scrap	360,850	360,260
Ferrous and ferroalloys	248,470	215,510
Graphites, coke and anthracites	57,650	55,530
Slagforming agents and minerals	36,210	32,480
Non Ferrous metals	12,600	13,690
Organic	3,680	4,920
Total	719,460	682,390