One of world’s leading steel and mining firms, ArcelorMittal, has signed a collaborative deal with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Engineering (MHIENG), BHP and Mitsubishi Development to reduce CO2 emissions of its steel production by 2030. Under this deal, MHIENG would share its carbon-capture technology with ArcelorMittal and conduct a feasibility and design study to support progress to full-scale deployment, a press release by the company said on October 27.
“It is through pan-industry partnerships and collaboration that we will achieve ArcelorMittal’s climate goals of reducing CO2 emissions by 35 percent by 2030 in Europe and by 30 percent by 2030 worldwide,” ArcelorMittal Belgium’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Manfred Van Vlierberghe said.
BHP and Mitsubishi Development are the key suppliers of steelmaking raw materials to ArcelorMittal’s European operations. They will fund the two-phased trials at the company’s steel plant in Gent, Belgium and another site in North America. With this collaboration, ArcelorMittal aims to identify ways to enhance carbon capture and utilisation and/or storage (CCUS) technologies, the release said.
Later this year, ArcelorMittal Gent will commission its Steelanol project that will capture carbon-rich process gases from the blast furnace and convert them into ethanol. The collaborators also plan to install the mobile test unit in one of ArcelorMittal’s North American Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) plants to test MHIENG’s technology in this steelmaking route, the company said in the press release.
The steelmaking industry is estimated to account for around seven-to-nine percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. CCUS has the potential to be a key technology for reducing emissions from blast furnaces, which are anticipated to remain a significant portion of steel production over the coming decades.
Vlierberghe said that ArcelorMittal is developing two routes to decarbonise steelmaking: smart carbon and innovative-DRI. Both routes are expected to aid carbon-neutral steelmaking.
A leading global resources company BHP sees this agreement as a critical milestone to support decarbonisation efforts in steelmaking. Compay’s Chief Commercial Officer (CCO), Vandita Pant said, “CCUS is one of the key abatement technologies with the potential to support the development of some pathways towards net zero for steelmaking.”
Mitsubishi Development’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Sadahiko Haneji said,“By participating in these trials, we are demonstrating a commitment to growing climate technologies and reducing our carbon footprint in ways that will not compromise our quality of life.”