Rio opens door to working with POSCO on green iron plant in Pilbara
Rio Tinto is open to working with Korea’s POSCO on green iron production in Western Australia, where it is trying to boost output from its newest and most technologically advanced mine.
The mining giant is seeking to ramp-up production from the Gudai-Darri mine to 50 million tonnes of iron ore a year at a cost of about $US70 million ($130 million). It is negotiating quality issues and approval delays starting to drag on its operations and decarbonisation ambitions that ultimately involve producing a much higher grade product than anything it currently sells out of WA.
The increase – from 43 million tonnes a year – will require a new set of approvals.
Rio Tinto warned last week that it would need to ship more low-grade iron ore over the next few years as it worked through various heritage, environmental and other approvals for its next tranche of Pilbara mines.
The quality issue comes with Rio looking at ways to supply high-grade iron ore as part decarbonisation ambitions that involve customer, or scope 3, emissions. Rio has talked up the use of high-grade iron ore in steel making as a way to lower emissions.
It is also looking at options to produce green iron in the Pilbara on top of building a vast network of solar and wind farms to decarbonise mining operations.
Rio iron ore boss Simon Trott said on Wednesday that it was willing to work with POSCO and others on green iron production in the Pilbara.
POSCO is studying the feasibility of using green hydrogen to power a hot briquette iron plant near Port Hedland, with a proposal for the multi-billion dollar project before WA’s environmental watchdog.
“POSCO is obviously a customer of Rio’s and this is an industry-wide challenge,” Mr Trott said. “We are doing some works
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