Posted on 23 Jun 2022
South Korean steelmaker POSCO has deepened its existing relationship with Australian miner, Hancock Prospecting, by signing an MoU for a joint study of the production of hot briquetted iron (HBI), a compacted form of direct reduced iron (DRI) that is chemically stable, making it suitable for exports.
The agreement was signed Monday between POSCO Group chairman, Choi Jeong-wo, and Gina Rinehart, executive chairwoman of Hancock Prospecting, during Choi's visit to western Australia.
The strategic alignment and cooperation MoU also encompasses developing important metals such as lithium, nickel and copper, the two announced.
"The signing of this agreement represents the next step in our long-standing relationship that began with POSCO Group's early support to help us build the Roy Hill mega (iron ore) project back in 2010," Rhinehart said in a statement.
Roy Hill, located in the Pilbara region of western Australia, is the country's largest single ore mine. Commercial production started in late 2015 and the mine, jointly owned by Hancock (70%), Japanese trader Marubeni (15%), POSCO (12.5%), and Taiwan's China Steel Corporation (2.5%), is producing about 55 million tonnes/year.
HBI, made from iron ore pellets and lumps, has long been used as a scrap supplement in electric arc furnaces, enabling mini-mills to produce high steel grades, and as a cleaner alternative to scrap in basic oxygen furnaces, Mysteel Global notes.
The POSCO-Hancock agreement will doubtless attract interest from BHP, which in the mid-1990s announced the construction of a 2 million t/y HBI plant in Port Hedland, western Australia.
The plant, which cost over $2 billion to build and commenced production in 1999, was stopped in 2005 after a gas explosion killed one worker and seriously burnt two others. The project was eventually written off and the plant decommissioned. In its last full year, it produced 1.7 million tonnes, according to a BHP statement.
While in western Australia, POSCO's Choi reportedly met with Philip Pascall, chairman of Canadian mining and metals company First Quantum Minerals, operator of Ravensthorpe Nickel, the nickel mining and processing venture located southeast of Perth in which the Korean steelmaker has a 30% stake.
Source:Mysteel Global
