Production of green steel from low-grade ores: An end-to-end techno-economic assessment

Hydrogen ironmaking is the most mature and advanced of the available green steel technologies, but uncertainty exists about its cost effectiveness with anything but the highest ore grades. Here, we investigate the end-to-end techno-economics of hydrogen ironmaking in the Australian context. We examine the role of Australian ore grades on the process design, ore beneficiation, fluidized bed (FB) and shaft furnace routes, and downstream steelmaking choices—electric arc furnace or smelter plus basic oxygen furnace (smelter-BOF). We find that low-grade ores have the potential to yield cost-competitive steel through the innovative FB-smelter-BOF pathway, potentially even without ore beneficiation. The cheapest pathway for green steel costs ∼50% more than the conventional blast furnace (BF)-BOF route at a 3.5 USD/kg hydrogen cost. However, after considering market prices for ore and a price on carbon (assumed 90 EUR/tCO2e), green steel appears to be approaching parity with BF-BOF steel at a hydrogen price of ∼4 USD/kg.