Hi All,I was doing some research into direct reduction Green...

Hi All,

I was doing some research into direct reduction Green Steel recently. As far as I can see, Bekisopa is globally significant as it is one of the only projects in the world that is capable of producing an ultra low phos DRI product.

Bekisopa is a clear outlier, having one of the lowest phos DRI products in the world. See below some old news from 2022 showing concentrate quality from a Central sample when ground to 75u and magnetically separated. The important item is the ridiculously low phosphorous (0.002% P). DRI specification is likely to be <0.03% P but preferred <0.01% P. I haven't heard of any other iron product with such low phos like the 75 micron davis tube Bekisopa product. Most traded iron ore is between 0.04% phos and 0.1% phos.




Phosphorous ruins steel by making it brittle. Standard blast furnaces (using coking coal as the reductant) mostly have phosphorous removal circuits, so they can remove phos and make high quality steel. However, in the DRI (Green Steel) process there is currently no way to separate the phosphorus from the iron. So Green Steel produced from high phosphorous DRI iron ore will make low quality brittle steel. Nobody wants to compete for this bottom end of the market, so DRI feed that can make high quality steel will be in very high demand. And there's not much of it.

This is a big problem for the world because there is very little suitable DRI feed, but a huge opportunity for Akora. In light of this, I think it is inevitable that the full development of Bekisopa will be well supported by Green Steel makers, because there are few other choices for green steel feed with suitable low phos content. I think Bekisopa is an extremely significant mineral deposit for lowering global steel making emissions. I don't think there are many other options globally for sourcing green steel DRI feed.

So the more I researched, the more I got excited about the strategic value of the Bekisopa resource.

I now think we may not make it into production before being taken out by a bigger fish with green dreams. In fact potential suitors are not limited to green dreamers, many countries are legislating emission reductions which will force companies to seek out green steel, forcing steel makers to seek out projects like Bekisopa. Get ready, this is going to be fun IMO.

As a side note:
The DSO resource contains high-ish phos levels of around ~0.1%. That will be OK for DSO blast furnace feed, because the phos can be removed by the steel maker. As we see at Bekisopa, phos is commonly higher at the outcrop than at depth due to concentration by weathering processes. The phos at Bekisopa falls somewhat with depth, however the magnetic separation is where the magic happens. The phos readily separates out using magnetic separation. This suggests that the phos is in the gangue (the white stuff) rather than in the magnetite. This is unusual. In most iron ores, the phosphorous is difficult to separate at the mine.