RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Mining giant Vale yesterday (9) announced a new iron ore product, called “green briquette”, that can reduce greenhouse gas emissions from steel production by up to 10%.
This is the mining company’s most tangible and scalable initiative in bringing new solutions capable of reducing the steel industry’s carbon footprint, one of the most polluting and carbon-taxed industries in the world.
Under development for over 20 years, the green briquette is a new type of iron ore agglomerate that does not require the use of high temperatures during handling, more precisely during the ore agglomeration process.
It is therefore a cleaner alternative to ore pellets and sintering, the two ways in which Vale now delivers its product to steel mills.
In the traditional method, this step must be performed at a temperature close to 1,300°C. To manufacture green briquettes, heat is maintained between 200 and 250ºC, dispensing with the need to burn excessive amounts of fossil fuel to produce energy.
In steel mills, the cut in emissions occurs because the product allows a reduction in the dependence on sintering, a carbon-intensive process prior to the production of steel.
The briquette includes sand from mine tailings treatment in its composition, and is able to resist the high blast furnace temperatures without disintegrating.
In an event held yesterday with investors and analysts, Vale announced that it is investing US$185 million to upgrade two pellet plants at the Tubarão unit in Vitória, Espírito Santo, and to build a new plant in Vargem Grande, Minas Gerais, both of which will produce the briquette. They should begin operations in 2023, with an estimated initial annual production of 7 million tons of green briquette.
There are 5 other analysis plants, including one in Oman, in the Middle East. Last month Vale announced a memorandum of understanding with Ternium to install a briquette plant at the steelmaker’s facilities in Brazil. The production of briquettes is expected to reach 50 million tons in the long term.
In addition to reducing its carbon footprint, Vale has signaled that the new product should have higher margins than traditional sinter and pellet production. According to the company, the process costs half as much as pelletizing and is 67% less capital intensive than pellet mills.
REDUCING SCOPE 3
The initiatives are part of Vale’s effort to meet its target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 15% in its so-called Scope 3 by 2035. These are emissions from the value chain, which comprises 98% of the company’s total emissions and mainly involves gases emitted in steel production by its steelmaking clients.
In this respect, the company is investing in technologies that can convert low-grade iron ore into more concentrated agglomerates. One such technology is the dry magnetic concentration of low-grade ores, which is also under assessment.
The first industrial plant using this technology is currently under construction, also in Vargem Grande, with an estimated investment of between US$125 million and US$150 million, and operations are expected to begin in 2 years, initially with a production capacity of 1.5 million tons per year. There are also 3 new plants in the evaluation stage, which would add another 16.5 million tons per year.
The mining company said it is also committed to the use of biomass instead of coal in pig iron production and to modernizing maritime transport with wind-assisted propulsion systems, among other initiatives.