ESSEN, Germany, April 21 /PRNewswire/ -- For LSR, the distribution company for special carbon products and today a subsidiary of Rheinbraun Brennstoff GmbH (RBB), coal has always been more than just a fuel. Thanks to the Company's direct link with RWE AG, LSR has firsthand access to special carbon products world-wide.

LSR was founded as Ludwig Schmidt Rohstoffhandel GmbH of Essen in 1963. Given the proximity to its numerous customers in the Ruhr region, its headquarters are located in Essen-Bergerhausen. It is from here that global procurements and distribution are steered.

LSR's main customers include the iron and steel industry, NF metallurgy, sugar factories, foundries and the chemical sector. A further field of application is graphitization. In all cases, our customers benefit from a demand-oriented product range, competence in application technologies, sophisticated logistics and quality-geared thinking.

Time-tested application technologies tailored to customers' requirements

The areas of application are as versatile as the international trading products - hard coal, hard coal coke and pet coke, anthracite and acetylene coke as well as the lignite coke produced by RWE Power AG. With their different qualities and different origins, they serve as process carbon, energy source, reduction agent or feed coal in electric arc furnaces. They are used to increase the scrap content in oxygen steel converters and as injection coal for slag foaming, for carburization and pre-deoxidation, and for recycling process dusts.

For all special products, there are time-tested technologies available that can be supplemented at will or integrated into existing systems. Internal transportation can be on a mechanical or pneumatic basis, and storage on site is in open or closed systems depending on our customers' needs. The evaluation criteria always involve the applicable safety regulations as well as the various worker's protection and emission control requirements, taking account of a technically and economically optimal product input.

All-round service and sophisticated logistics round off our product range

Of course LSR supplies its products "just in time" - as required and in the right quality, at the right time and where they're needed. Partner companies of our Group have a pool of special vehicles to transport the products directly to customers, enabling us to pinpoint their various logistic requirements. This also applies to small batch sizes, ranging from a 4-kg bag via classic paper bags all the way to big bags or special customized packaging sizes.

LSR offers an all-round service, extending from concept development, via consultancy and support in plant planning, all the way to individual economic efficiency studies of various input materials. For this purpose, the Company has the benefit of a well-versed team of application engineers, decades of experience in handling special products and a fund of knowledge acquired jointly with our customers.

Further information about the Company and the various products is available on the Internet at http://www.lsr-essen.de.

Press contact: LSR - NL der Rheinbraun Brennstoff GmbH Sina Pung Bonsiepen 7 D-45136 Essen Phone: +49(0)201-89-622-21 Fax: +49(0)201-89-622-55 E-mail: sina.pung@rwe.com

Press contact: LSR - NL der Rheinbraun Brennstoff GmbH, Sina Pung, Bonsiepen 7, D-45136 Essen, Phone: +49(0)201-89-622-21, Fax: +49(0)201-89-622-55, E-mail: sina.pung@rwe.com