Baosteel's thick plate plant joint venture in Saudi Arabia with oil giant Aramco will employ hydrogen-based direct reduced iron technology to feed an electric arc furnace for steelmaking, Baosteel chairman Zou Jixin said during the firm’s 2022 interim results briefing.

This will allow the mill to produce “green” low-carbon steel, which can easily be sold to the European market where carbon taxes are levied, Zou explained.

Baosteel is also exploring the hydrogen-based DRI plus EAF steelmaking process in China through a 1 million tonnes/year project at its Zhanjiang Iron & Steel Base in Guangdong, Kallanish notes. The facility is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2023 and will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 500,000 t/y.

In September 2021, Baosteel and Aramco signed a memorandum of understanding on the steel plant construction. The project mainly includes construction of a full-process thick plate plant and related supporting facilities, which are positioned to produce high-end thick plate products (see Kallanish passim).