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Pig iron is emerging as a leading green iron raw material in the steelmaking industry, as more companies are looking for alternative ways to lower fossil fuel emissions.

Australian company Magnum Mining and Exploration (MGU) is gearing up to become a pioneer of the green iron market with its flagship Buena Vista magnetite project in Nevada, USA.

Additionally, MGU is pioneering the country’s first-ever green pig iron plant in West Virginia called Appalachian Iron, which will use the highly coveted proprietary HIsmelt direct smelting process.

The HIsmelt process represents a practical alternative to the blast furnace, which historically produced pig iron, and after 40 years of intensive development, it is the only proven environmentally acceptable substitute.

MGU CEO Neil Goodman has a proven track record of planning and building large-scale iron plants around the globe, with his previous roles including 20 years at Rio Tinto (RIO) and Shandong Molong China, where he built the world’s first two HIsmelt plants.

Shandong Molong purchased the rights to HIsmelt technology from Rio Tinto and is now the sole owner of the IP.

“The Appalachian iron project has the potential to create a large number of quality jobs in the state of West Virginia, and we appreciate the West Virginia Department of Economic Development’s support in these efforts to advance the Appalachian Iron project,” Mr Goodman said.

The vision of each project lies in the production of net zero carbon green steel through the conversion of locally sourced and sustainably produced biomass, such as forestry waste.

Biomass is converted into biochar to offset the carbon emissions from pig iron smelting and is then injected into MGU’s HIsmelt furnace to be converted into liquid pig iron.

Magnum is currently securing pathways to use the HIsmelt technology at its West Virginia and Nevada projects to become the first green pig iron producer in North America.

A history of pig iron

Pig iron is a solid form of hot metal obtained from iron ore usually produced from blast furnaces before it is processed into steel using a basic oxygen furnace. Although, more recently, electric arc furnaces have become the overarching choice for smelting.

Blast furnaces have been used for more than 2000 years to produce liquid pig iron, and they use pressurised air to burn coke and smelt iron ore to create steel.

The remaining carbon in the pig iron is combusted by the injection of oxygen at supersonic speed.

Magnum’s Buena Vista magnetite project uses 100 per cent sustainably sourced biochar instead of coke, edging the company further toward a net-zero and green pig iron certification.

Today, pig iron is increasingly used in electric arc furnace (EAF) steel-making, and with new EAF plants already under construction, the global pig iron trade is destined to rise rapidly over the coming years.

The Buena Vista green pig iron project

Magnum’s Buena Vista magnetite project was first discovered in the late 1890s and lies 160 kilometres east-north-east of the city of Reno in Nevada.

From the late 1950s to the early 1960s, 900,000 tonnes of direct shipping magnetite ore was mined at the project, with a 58 per cent estimated iron ore grade.

Later in the 1960s, the US Steel Corporation acquired the Buena Vista project and carried out a 230-diamond drill hole campaign which totalled more than 13,000 metres of drilling and assayed more than 5000 samples across magnetite mineralised zones using Davis Tube Recovery (DTR).

Over the years, diamond drill programs have been conducted by multiple companies to advance the targets identified 60 years ago, including and 2010 program carried out by Richmond Mining and a 2012 diamond and reverse circulation (RC) program by Nevada Iron.

In October 2020, Magnum announced it was acquiring the Nevada project, and in March 2021, the company updated Buena Vista’s mineral resource estimate (MRE).

The company’s 100 per cent owned MRE now stands at 232 million tonnes of pig iron at 18.6 per cent iron ore and 22.6 per cent DTR.

Last month, MGU landed a highly anticipated tripartite agreement with Shandong Molong and Shandong Province Metallurgical (SDM) to receive a conditional HIsmelt patent application license.

“This conditional grant of the HIsmelt licence from Molong to Magnum and agreement for the Feasibility Study are instrumental to advancing the Buena Vista Project’s development,” Mr Goodman said.

“Molong is presently the world leader in the application of HIsmelt technology for ironmaking, and SDM is one of the most experienced HIsmelt engineering companies in the world having worked on several plants in Australia, China, and South East Asia.”

In May, Magnum completed a shallow RC drill program at Buena Vista, which intersected ‘massive’ high-grade magnetites that were easily visible.

The future value of pig iron and Magnum’s market advantage

Magnum’s green pig iron and its HIsmelt direct smelting technology position the company to become a leading producer of pig iron for sustainable US and international steelmaking markets.

MGU’s pig iron adds extra value to in-house iron ore sales and decreases the company’s carbon footprint by sourcing raw materials locally instead of coal.

The Buena Vista and Appalachian Iron green pig iron projects prime Magnum to become the first and only green pig iron producer in the USA.

Negotiations are in progress with the West Virginia Department of Economic Development, regarding financial support to accelerate MGU’s Appalachian Iron project, which holds the potential to eliminate millions of tonnes of carbon emissions per year.