Tata Steel ropes in Australia's BHP to study low-emission steelmaking tech

Homegrown Tata Steel has partnered with Australia-based BHP to jointly explore low carbon 'iron and steelmaking' technology.

The partnership aims to help both companies progress toward their climate change goals, and support India's ambitions to be carbon neutral by 2070, the domestic steel major said on Wednesday.

Tata Steel has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with BHP, a leading global resources company, with the intention to jointly study and explore low carbon 'iron and steelmaking' technology, it said in a statement.

Under the partnership, Tata Steel and BHP intend to collaborate on ways to reduce the emission intensity of the blast furnace steel route, via two priority areas the use of biomass as a source of energy and the application of carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) in steel production.

The new technology is to reduce the emission intensity of integrated steel mills by up to 30 per cent.

More importantly, these projects demonstrate how abatements applied to the blast furnace iron-making process, which contributes to more than 60 per cent of India's steel production, can materially reduce the carbon intensity of the existing capacity.

Rajiv Mukerji, Vice President, Group Strategic Procurement, Tata Steel, said: "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".

According to a ministry document, the iron and steel industry globally accounts for around 8 per cent of total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions on an annual basis, whereas in India, it contributes 12 per cent to the total CO2 emissions.

Thus, the Indian steel industry needs to reduce its emissions substantially in view of the commitments made at the COP26 climate change conference.