Calcined Petroleum Coke is used as a material for graphite electrodes in steel manufacturing, and also for Soderberg or prebaked electrodes in aluminum manufacturing.
Due to ultra-high power operation of electric furnace which was recently developed in USA, highly improved specifications become necessary to graphite electrodes; especially lower electric resistivity, lower coefficient of thermal expansion etc. as compared to the traditional ones. Thus, the same specifications are required of Calcined Petroleum Coke as the material.
As a result, a new type of Calcined Petroleum Coke was developed; that is NEEDLE COKE.
Needle coke has extremely excellent characteristics both electrically and phisically, and therefore, is considered as an inevitable material for Ultra-high Power (UHP) electrodes.
Needle coke is being manufactured in 4 plants in Japan, USA and UK. However their production does not meet the demand of the world. Moreover the production of UHP electrodes is expected to expand substantially in the future. Meantime it is predicted that this short-supply status will not be corrected soon since its material procurement is quite difficult.
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