Blast furnace reline BlueScope's testing ground for green steel

Speaking at an i3net industry event today, David Scott, newly appointed general manager manufacturing at BlueScope said the steelmaker was already thinking about how to reduce the carbon emissions from traditional steelmaking.

"I look at the blast furnace reline as a bridge to enable us to secure the business while also being working with people to develop new technologies for low intensity steelmaking," he said.

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Currently, BlueScope is investing $120 million in long lead-time components, including carbon blocks that sit at the bottom of the furnace and internal cooling elements called staves.

BlueScope expects the relined no. 6 blast furnace to come online in 2026 and with the facilities having a typical lifecycle of 20 years, its replacement would likely be some form of low-carbon blast furnace.

In the meantime, Mr Scott said the company was looking to reduce emissions from traditional steelmaking.

"We're spending $100 million on environmental improvements as part of the reline."

Mr Scott's comments to local industry come as the Greens propose two funds to accelerate green steel production.

Still in the pilot phase at steelworks in Europe, Mr Scott said to get a local plant up and running would require similar government support as seen internationally.

"If you look at Europe where the core of this work is progressing, a lot of the research and trials has come on the back of government funding," he said.

"There's a significant capital outlay to decarbonise the steel industry and we would welcome all government support."

Government support for steelmaking has recently come in the form of a $55 million Modern Manufacturing Initiative grant for the production of plate steel to be used in the fabrication of wind turbines.

The plate mill will be commissioned in 2024 and while this could look like all the ingredients coming together for the production of green steel, with renewable energy for electrolysers coming from locally made wind turbines, Mr Scott said there was some work to be done to tie all the pieces of the puzzle together.

"If we are going to have steel, we need to have low-cost, green hydrogen and we need to have firmed, affordable renewable energy."

To this end, BlueScope has signed a memorandum of understanding with Shell for the development of an electrolyser and another MOU with Rio Tinto for a pilot plant for direct reduced iron, a key ingredient in green steel.

"We need to understand how to manufacture and transport and store hydrogen and we also need to to play with it, to understand how it works in the blast furnace. So that's where we're focused," he said.

"We're not sitting on our hands, we're investigating this technology and we want to be part of the solution to decarbonisation, rather than just sort of wait for it to happen."

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