Voestalpine signed a cooperation agreement with Primetals, Mitsubishi Corporation and Rio Tinto. The four parties plan to work together to accelerate the development of fluidized bed and smelting furnace smelting technology at Voestalpine’s Linz plant.
An industrial-scale direct reduced iron & smelting furnace prototype plant will be built at the plant, using a new process that has the potential to achieve near-zero emission ironmaking. It is scheduled to be put into production in mid-2027.
The voestalpine Linz plant will use the Hydrogen-based Fine-Ore Reduction (HYFOR) and melting furnace solutions developed by Primetals, and the equipment is expected to produce 3 tons of hot metal per hour. The new process to be used in the plant is a direct reduction technology for iron ore fines that does not require agglomeration. The melting furnace is a smelting furnace that uses renewable energy to smelt direct reduced iron and provide hot metal for steelmaking with the potential to achieve near-zero emissions.
To achieve near-zero emissions in steel production, voestalpine has developed a clear phased plan. First, it will start operating an electric arc furnace using green energy in Linz and Donawitz from 2027. Secondly, by 2029, voestalpine’s CO2 emissions are planned to be reduced by 30% compared to 2019, which is almost equivalent to 5% of Austria’s annual CO2 emissions. Finally, it will use green hydrogen to achieve near-zero emissions in steel production in the near future.
In this cooperation, Rio Tinto will use its rich experience in iron ore production to provide technical support for the project and will also provide 70% of the iron ore for the cooperation project.
The Austrian Federal Government has provided funding for the construction and operation of the voestalpine DRI + smelting furnace prototype plant through the “Industrial Transformation” program managed by KPC (an agency that manages government-funded projects and provides targeted consulting services to promote long-term environmental, economic and social development) and the “Dual Transformation” program managed by the Austrian AWS SME Fund.
