State-owned China Baowu Steel Group, the world's biggest steelmaker, and Rio Tinto, the world's largest iron ore producer, signed a memorandum of understanding on Monday to explore a range of industry-leading projects in China and Australia to help decarbonize the steel value chain, Rio Tinto said.
Under the memorandum, China Baowu and Rio Tinto plan to jointly advance specific decarbonization projects, demonstrating their commitment to play a leading role in the industry's low-carbon transformation.
The signing follows the recently announced $2 billion Western Range Joint Venture in the Pilbara region of Western Australia involving Rio Tinto and Baowu.
The projects include a pilot-scale electric melter at one of Baowu's steel mills in China, the optimization of pelletization technology for Australian ore as a feedstock for low-carbon shaft furnace-based direct reduction and the expanded development of China Baowu's HyCROF technology, as well as study opportunities for producing low-carbon iron in Western Australia.
"Rio Tinto and China Baowu are united in a commitment to accelerating the delivery of low-carbon solutions for the entire steel value chain. This MoU aims to address one of the biggest challenges faced by the industry – developing a low-carbon pathway for low-to-medium grade iron ores — which account for the vast majority of global iron ore supply," Rio Tinto Chief Commercial Officer Alf Barrios said. "China's commitment to curbing emissions and promoting high-quality green development is strongly aligned with our own position where climate change and the low-carbon transition are at the heart of our strategy."
Baowu said the company is committed to working with Rio Tinto to jointly study and provide low-carbon and green comprehensive solutions for the steel value chain, help the low-carbon transformation and upgrade of the steel industry chain and support the world in addressing the challenge of climate change with pragmatic action.
Rio Tinto and China Baowu have a long history of collaboration, including on project development in Australia and Guinea, new technology research and deployment and emissions reduction in steelmaking.
