Last week, Vale completed the shipment of its first batch of iron ore briquettes for blast furnace testing outside of Brazil. According to the miner, the 8,000-ton batch has been shipped from the port of Asu to the port of Rotterdam and will be tested at a European customer's facility in May.
The behavior of the briquette will be tested during transport, which is estimated to last 20 days, as well as its performance in a steel mill blast furnace. In Brazil, 70,000 tons of briquettes have already been industrially tested in six different blast furnaces. According to Weil, during testing in Brazil, the briquette successfully met the technological requirements, which allowed to maintain the production and operational parameters of the blast furnace.
“This is another important milestone in our journey to provide low-carbon solutions for the global steel industry. Through industrial testing, we can win the trust of strategic partners who will become leaders in the use of briquettes in the coming years,” says Rogerio Nogueira, Vale’s director of product and business development, in a letter.
The product can replace sinter, pellets and lumps in blast furnaces and pellets in direct reduction furnaces, reducing emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases compared to traditional iron ore sintering processes of pelletizing and sintering. Replacing the sintering stage has the potential to reduce carbon emissions by up to 10%.
Last week's shipment was produced at a demonstration plant in the state of São Paulo. Vale is building two briquette plants at its Tubarão plant in Vitoria with a capacity of 6 million tons per year. The launch of the first plant is scheduled for the middle of this year.
