Rio Tinto has committed to invest $10 million with the world’s
largest steel producer China Baowu Steel Group over the next two
years in low-carbon steelmaking projects and research. This
investment is the next step in advancing the partnership formed
between Rio Tinto, China Baowu and Tsinghua University in 2019 to
develop and implement new methods to reduce carbon emissions and
improve environmental performance across the steel value chain.
Rio Tinto’s investment will fund the joint establishment of a
Low Carbon Raw Materials Preparation R&D Centre, which will
initially prioritise the development of lower carbon ore
preparation processes. This will include creating two ore
preparation pilot plants, one to use biomass and the other
exploring using microwave technology. The investment will also
support work on carbon dioxide utilisation and conversion at the
China Baowu Low Carbon Metallurgical Innovation Centre, which is a
Baowu-led open platform for advancing metallurgical technologies to
support the low-carbon transformation of the steel industry.
These investments will advance technologies that will be crucial
in reducing emissions from China’s prevalent iron and steel making
process, and will support both the short and long-term
decarbonisation goals of the steel industry. As the world’s largest
steel producer, China Baowu’s leadership in advancing low-carbon
steel solutions is an important pillar in supporting China’s target
of striving to be carbon neutral by 2060.
Rio Tinto chief executive J-S Jacques said "This investment with
our partners at China Baowu is an important step in our climate
partnership. We have been able to identify research and development
projects which have the potential to significantly reduce the
carbon emissions associated with existing steelmaking processes, as
well as developing technologies for the future of steelmaking to
support the transition to a low-carbon economy.
“The initial priority areas identified by the partnership for
investment show the value of working together to share resources
and utilise the strengths of the respective teams to make progress
towards a low-carbon steel value chain.”
China Baowu chairman Chen Derong said “To deal with global
climate change and achieve green transformation through cooperation
has become the consensus and common practices of the global steel
value chain. It requires collective action of the steel
enterprises, as well as upstream and downstream players. We highly
appreciate Rio Tinto’s commitment to advancing a low-carbon future,
and we hope to strengthen our partnership with Rio Tinto in
contributing our joint efforts.”
About Rio Tinto
Rio Tinto produces materials that are essential to human
progress. We have publicly acknowledged the reality of climate
change for over two decades and have reduced our emissions
footprint by over 30 per cent in the decade to 2020.
We have set ambitious emissions targets to reduce our carbon
intensity by a further 30% and our absolute emissions by a further
15% by 2030, alongside establishing a $1 billion fund to invest in
climate related projects. These targets will bring us a step closer
to achieving our long-term goal of becoming net zero emissions by
2050.
In 2018, we completed the divestment of our coal assets,
becoming the only major mining company not producing fossil fuels.
In the same year, we also entered into the Elysis joint venture
with Alcoa, with investments from the Government of Quebec and
Apple, which is developing a revolutionary process to make
aluminium that eliminates all direct greenhouse gas emissions from
smelting.
In 2019, we entered into a partnership with the world’s largest
steel producer, China Baowu Steel Group and Tsinghua University to
develop and implement new methods to reduce carbon emissions and
improve environmental performance across the steel value chain.
About China Baowu Steel Group
The vision of China Baowu is to become a leader in the global
steel industry, with a mission to build up a high-quality steel
ecosphere together. Its core values of integrity, innovation,
synergy, and sharing informs its commitment to advancing a green,
high-quality and intelligent steel manufacturing industry, with
coordinated effort across related industries including new
materials, modern trade logistics, industrial services, urban
services, and industrial finance, leveraging its leadership in
technology, efficiency and scale.
The overall approach of China Baowu’s low-carbon metallurgical
technology innovation is to explore and adopt key low-carbon
technologies by continuously innovating and improving the existing
steelmaking process in the short term, and to lead technology of
the future in the longer term. China Baowu is building an open
platform to work with partners to explore technology solutions and
roadmaps to reinvent the steel-making process and reshape the
low-carbon value chain for the steel industry’s low-carbon
transformation.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201215006224/en/
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