Posted on 19 Aug 2021
Australia-based steel producer BlueScope Steel is seeking alternatives to using metallurgical coal in the blast furnace at its 2.1mn t/yr Port Kembla steelworks but will skip natural gas and focus on hydrogen and biochar as replacements.
BlueScope plans to reline its non-operational blast furnace No.6 at Port Kembla in New South Wales (NSW) to replace its blast furnace No.5, which is due to come to the end of its campaign life in 2026-30. This A$700mn-800mn ($550mn-630mn) investment implies a 20-year commitment to traditional steelmaking using iron ore and coking coal, but BlueScope hopes to minimise its carbon emissions by replacing as much of the metallurgical coal with alternatives as possible.
It will initially replace pulverised coal injection (PCI) grade coking coal with gas from its coke ovens, which contain 60pc hydrogen. It then plans to team up with the federal government's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) to develop a pilot hydrogen electrolyser at Port Kembla to produce green hydrogen to supplement the coke oven gas. In the longer term, it plans to use this pilot plant as a basis for a mature hydrogen industry at Port Kembla that could support green steel production through an alternate route to the blast furnace.
BlueScope is also partnering with CSIRO to use charcoal produced from pyrolysis of organic material, or biochar, as another replacement for a portion of the metallurgical coal used in the blast furnace. This, combined with increased use of scrap and renewable power sources, is part of the firm's plan to begin reducing its carbon emissions in the short term.
The firm has ruled out using natural gas as a means to cut its emissions on the basis that it is too high cost. This will be a blow to the proponents of the 2mn t/yr Port Kembla LNG import terminal, which had hoped to count BlueScope as one of its cornerstone industrial customers.
BlueScope has set a goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, in line with the target set by its former parent company and iron ore supplier BHP. It was unable to set the more ambitious target of net zero by 2030 because the technology to do so is not yet commercially viable, chief executive Mark Vassella said.
BlueScope has found that using hydrogen from renewable sources will currently be about six times more expensive than natural gas, and that replacing the blast furnace with an electric arc furnace will be inefficient because of the high cost of power and a lack of scrap availability in Australia.
Source:Argus
