PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Minerals explorer Reedy Lagoon Corporation has entered into an agreement with Dinsdale Consultants and Smelt Tech Consulting to establish ‘green iron’ production in Western Australia.
The ‘green iron’ production center would use the Rio Tinto-developed HIsmelt technology to smelt magnetite from Reedy Lagoon’s Burracoppin deposit, using biochar as the reductant, instead of coal.
The HIsmelt technology is operating commercially in China, and involves the smelting of iron-ore into pig iron with lower environmental emissions than the conventional blast furnace technology to produce a ‘green’ pig iron.
Reedy Lagoon told shareholders on Tuesday that establishing ‘green iron’ production in Western Australia has the potential to establish a pathway to commercialise its Burracoppin magnetite deposit by processing magnetite to pig iron, rather than selling it as a concentrate into the iron-ore market.
The company noted that while no resource had yet been defined at Burracoppin, the qualities of the magnetite were well suited to ‘green pig iron’ production.
Dinsdale is expected to produce a report on carbon emissions from smelting the Burracoppin magnetite and carbon sourced entirely from carbon capture from the atmosphere within the next week or so, which should assist Reedy Lagoon in demonstrating that the project met the economic, environmental and policy objectives of both the federal and Western Australian governments, and should assist Reedy Lagoon in qualifying for government support for the project.