UK-based steelmaker Liberty Steel Group has announced that its subsidiary Liberty Primary Metals Australia (LPMA) has tested its magnetite at specialized facilities in Egypt and Canada, following completion of the design of its integrated hydrogen direct reduced iron-electric arc furnace (DRI-EAF) green steel plant to be built in Whyalla, in South Australia, surpassing quality and performance expectations in the tests. The green steel plant is scheduled to be operational in 2027.
Liberty has recently completed testing where its high-grade magnetite was run through full-scale DRI units, and the test pellets outperformed the reference pellets currently used at both facilities in Canada and Egypt. The test results demonstrated the superior performance of Liberty’s magnetite in reducibility.
The company stated that the need for high-quality magnetite iron ore is heading to unprecedented levels with increasing demand for low-carbon technologies like DRI. The magnetite with high iron concentration enables the production of higher steel grades with less energy consumption and very low carbon emissions. Liberty’s iron ore mines in Whyalla have the potential to produce some of the highest-grade concentrate in the world from over four billion mt of magnetite ore resources.