Shougang Group and Rio Tinto have commissioned an industrial-scale carbon capture trial facility at Shougang’s Jingtang operations in China, designed to capture CO2 from blast furnace gas.
The facility can process up to 3,000 cubic metres of blast furnace gas per hour and capture up to 10,000 tons of CO2 annually. It has been integrated into Shougang’s ironmaking production system and will operate long-term for trial and research purposes.
The project follows a smaller-scale carbon capture facility commissioned in 2024 and forms part of a 2022 MoU between the companies covering technologies to reduce emissions across the steel value chain, including low-carbon sintering, blast furnace and BOF optimization, and carbon capture and utilization.
Rio Tinto and Shougang are also exploring the use of captured CO2 to produce syngas that could be recycled into the steelmaking process, potentially reducing the need for new carbon inputs. The companies said using waste heat from existing operations could help lower carbon capture costs and support wider deployment of the technology at existing blast furnaces.
Rio Tinto is one of the world’s largest iron ore producers and exporters and a core business of Rio Tinto Group. Its main operations are in Western Australia’s Pilbara region, where it operates an integrated network of 18 mines, four port terminals and around 2,000 km of rail infrastructure. The business also operates the Iron Ore Company of Canada (IOC), producing high-grade iron ore concentrate and pellets.
Established in 1919 and headquartered in Beijing, Shougang Group is a leading Chinese state-owned steelmaker with annual crude steel capacity of around 35 mln tons, ranking among the top producers globally.
