Australia-based iron ore company Magnum Mining & Exploration (Magnum) has announced that it has signed an agreement with Saudi Arabia-based technology company Midmetal - which is exploring the utilization of the latest technologies to produce pig iron - to jointly fund a feasibility study on producing zero-carbon “green” pig iron at Magnum’s Hlsmelt facility in Saudi Arabia.
The feasibility study will assess the technical and economic benefits of producing green pig iron in Saudi Arabia using the HIsmelt technology to smelt waste materials from Saudi steel mills, plus iron ore concentrate from Magnum’s Buena Vista mine in Nevada, US. These iron materials will be smelted into high quality pig iron using biochar, allowing the pig iron to be certified as having “net zero” carbon emissions. The study is expected to be completed by the end of 2023.
The green pig iron will be sold to local market, the MENA region, the EU, the US and Asian steel plants for the production of green steel.