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The paper presents summary data based on the results of laboratory studies and comprehensive industrial trials of a fundamentally new type of product in electrometallurgy — cores of graphitized electrodes developed at PWI of the NAS of Ukraine for DC and AC arc steel-melting furnaces of up to 50 t capacity. It is shown that during the last decades, the world production of steel has increased continuously, getting very close to 2 bln t per year. Approximately 30 % of this volume is produced in arc furnaces, and by the end of this decade it will reach 40 %. It is shown that the cored electrode arc has much lower specific current and power values in all the sections (cathode, column, anode) than the monolithic electrode arc. It was found that voltage drop in the core cathode spot is 2.3‒3.3 times smaller than in the monolithic electrode. Cored electrodes improve all the technical-economic characteristics of operation of DC and AC steel-melting furnaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]