Rio Tinto's HIsmelt® plant begins initial production

Rio Tinto’s HIsmelt® plant begins initial production

Rio Tinto's new commercial scale HIsmelt® plant began continuous production of molten iron from its smelt reduction vessel at Kwinana in Western Australia, marking the start of a new era of cleaner, more efficient iron production. The HIsmelt® plant is owned by a joint venture among Rio Tinto (60 percent), US steelmaker Nucor Corporation (25 percent), Japanese trading house Mitsubishi Corporation (10 percent) and Chinese steelmaker Shougang Corporation (5 percent). Construction of the plant was completed in April 2005, and has been progressively commissioned since then. Production at the plant will escalate over the next three years as it approaches it full production rate of 800'000 metric tons per year. The iron produced will be sold as pig iron once sufficient stocks have built up. Construction of the HIsmelt® plant took two years, at a cost of more than A$400 million dollars ($293 million). HIsmelt® is a new technology developed by Rio Tinto to enable the direct smelting of fine iron ore and coal into molten iron. It offers significant technical and environmental advantages over existing iron making techniques.