Tata Steel has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Australia-based mining major BHP with an objective to jointly understand and explore lower carbon iron and steelmaking technology.

The partnership is expected to see BHP and Tata Steel work together on ways to cut down the intensity of emissions of the blast furnace steel route. This will be through a couple of priority areas, which include using biomass as a source of energy and applying carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) in the production of steel.

The aim of the partnership will be to help each other in advancing towards their respective goals in climate change, and underpin India’s efforts to become carbon neutral.

Vandita Pant — BHP Chief Commercial Officer said: “The partnership with Tata Steel highlights the importance of collaborations in being able to successfully identify and implement emission reduction technologies in steelmaking, including by developing abatements that can apply to the existing blast furnace process to incrementally reduce its carbon emissions intensity.”

The technologies to be studied in the collaboration are expected to potentially bring down the emission intensity of integrated steel mills by up to 30%.

Apart from the projects, Tata Steel and BHP have pledged to a strong ongoing knowledge-exchange that will see both of them further explore partnerships, business opportunities, and ecosystems in the steel value chain, and the research and innovation sectors in India as well as Australia.

Rajiv Mukerji — Tata Steel Group Strategic Procurement Vice President said: “The steel sector will play a critical role in achieving India’s net-zero commitment. Tata Steel is already working on several pilot projects focussed on the development of deep decarbonisation technologies such as CCU, hydrogen-based steelmaking, use of biomass and other alternate steelmaking routes.

“We believe strategic collaborations are vital in paving the way for innovations to accelerate the deployment of breakthrough technologies at scale and therefore this partnership with BHP is an important step for us.”

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