Brazilian iron ore major Vale SA has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with China’s Jiangsu Shagang Group to work together to develop steelmaking solutions focused on reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
Vale and Jiangsu Shagang plan to conduct economic feasibility studies on using products with a lower carbon footprint in the iron-making process, including high-grade iron ore products and to cooperate on the Tecnored plant.
Tecnored process
Vale subsidiary Tecnored Desenvolvimento Tecnologico (Tecnored) is based on a technology that uses cold pellets, or iron ore lumps, composed of fine particles of iron ore and a reducing agent (such as different types of coal). When heated in a furnace (not a blast furnace) the reducing agent removes the oxygen from the iron ore, which is consequently transformed into pig iron.
Tecnored is a 100% subsidiary of Vale, focusing on the use of biomass and syngas to develop low-carbon iron-making processes. There is no need of coking or of sintering, as is required to produce pig iron in a blast furnace.
Doing away with these processes cuts energy use. The furnace can use low-cost energy sources for fuel, such as coal and biomass (sugarcane bagasse, for example).
The tecnored process allows the production of pig iron from various grades and quality of iron ore, including ultrafine iron ore, which are dumped in tailings ponds that have been the source of environmental disasters in Brazil.
Vale is committed to reducing Scope 3 net emissions by 15% by 2035 and to reduce absolute emissions of Scope 1 and Scope 2 by 33% by 2030 in order to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. The globally diversified iron ore miner has previously cooperated with leading Japanese steel producers such as Kobe Steel and Mitsui to seek to develop tecnored.
Shagang Group
Shagang is China’s third-largest and the world’s sixth-largest steel producer, with total crude steel production of 41 million tonnes (mn t) in 2020, including associate companies. It has a leading market position in eastern China, where over 40% of domestic steel products are consumed. Shagang’s production base in Zhangjiagang city is the world’s largest steel plant with 23 mn t of crude steel produced in 2020.
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