Laiwu Licenses HIsmelt Iron Ore Smelting Process

摘要

China's Laiwu Steel Group has licensed Rio Tinto's HIsmelt high-intensity direct-smelting process for application at an 800,000-mt-per-yr plant to be constructed at Laiwu City in Shandong Province. The Laiwu plant will replicate the HIsmelt plant Rio Tinto is currently building at Kwinana, Western Australia, where the revolutionary technology was largely developed. The Laiwu plant will be the second commercial application of the process and the first external to Rio Tinto. Rio Tinto Iron Ore chief executive, Chris Renwick, said the agreement with Laiwu "reflects the growing awareness of the significant potential of the HIsmelt process to revolutionize ironmaking and provide a premium metallic for the global steelmaking industry." The company believes HIsmelt has the potential to replace traditional blast-furnace ironmaking and to supply low-cost, high-quality iron units for electric arc steelmaking