The Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) on Monday announced a collaboration with leading global resources company BHP to accelerate steelmaking decarbonisation in the country.

SAIL, the largest government-owned steel producer in India, said the move is an important step for them in promoting lower carbon steelmaking technology pathways for the blast furnace (BF) route in the country.

Amarendu Prakash, Chairman of SAIL, said the emergent need to align the steel sector with climate commitments is non-negotiable.

“SAIL is committed to contributing towards tackling the issue of climate change through fostering an innovative future for the steel industry in India,” said Prakash.

Both the companies are exploring a number of workstreams supporting the potential decarbonisation at SAIL’s integrated steel plants which operate blast furnaces (BF), with an initial study to assess various strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG).

These workstreams will consider the role of alternate reductants for the BF such as hydrogen and biochar use, with a view to also building local research and development capability to support the decarbonisation transition.

“We recognise that decarbonising this industry is a challenge that we cannot meet alone, and we must come together to leverage shared expertise and resources, to support the development of technologies and capability that could have the potential to create a real change in carbon emissions both now and in the longer term,” explained Rag Udd, BHP’s Chief Commercial Officer.

According to a recent report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, India’s steel sector accounts for about 12 per cent of its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

The report mentioned that there are multiple ways that could help in the transition from traditional methods to low emission intensity technology like green hydrogen, renewable energy, carbon capture, usage and storage technology with blast furnace (BF)/basic oxygen furnace (BOF) or direct reduced iron (DRI)-electric arc furnace (EAF) and scrap-based Electric arc furnace (EAF).