Here's how new technology could remove a major road block for...

Here's how new technology could remove a major road block for green steel - *



DRI in particular requires a high grade, low impurity iron ore above 66% (4% above the benchmark index and 5-6% above the grades of major Pilbara iron ore producers) to function. And that is in incredibly short supply, with only 4-5% of the iron ore sold worldwide making the grade, much of that out of politically risky Ukraine and Russia.

Nicholas and Basirat say European and Australian steelmakers including Thyssenkrupp, ArcelorMittal, BlueScope and Tenova are looking at processes, mostly including an additional melting stage, that would allow blast furnace grade iron ore to be used in the DRI steelmaking process.In terms of iron ore supply, these new technology developments which allow the use of lower grade iron ore are likely to be key,” Nicholas said.“In such early days, it would be dangerous to put all your chips on that and say that’s definitely the solution.

“You’re probably also going to need to see more DR grade iron ore supply, so probably more magnetite mines developed, more beneficiation to existing supply where that’s possible. In places like the Pilbara that’s difficult.“So it’s probably going to be a combination of things.

The likely leader in this space appears at the moment to be Thyssenkrupp. It is planning to replace four of its blast furnaces with DRI-SAF plants by 2045, starting with the first two in 2025 and 2030. I think it’s fair to say that these new DRI technology developments that allow them to use low grade iron ore, they’re fairly new and Thyssenkrupp seems to be progressing fairly seriously with the plan,” Nicholas said.

“But if we see start to see final investment decisions from the likes of them and then ArcelorMittal, which is obviously a huge steelmaker and has a similar plan, then BHP might start to see that this is actually quite a serious option to get around that hurdle of limited DR Grade iron ore supply.”

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Just thought I'd share to ensure you get a balanced view of where magnetite is heading.