Nippon Steel Corporation and Rio Tinto Sign Memorandum of Understanding

ippon Steel Corporation, the largest steel producer in Japan, and Rio Tinto, the world's leading mining and metals company, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to jointly explore, develop and demonstrate technologies to move towards a low carbon steel value chain.

Nippon Steel and Rio Tinto have a long history of cooperation: the first shipment of iron ore from Australia to Japan was shipped from Rio Tinto Pilbara in 1966 to the Yawata plant in Kitakyushu, now part of Nippon Steel. With this memorandum of understanding, Nippon Steel and Rio Tinto seek to strengthen their long-standing relationship by expanding into new areas in support of the common goal of significantly reducing carbon emissions throughout the steel value chain.
Japan's recent announcement of its commitment to a zero-carbon society by 2050 has given Japanese companies even greater incentive to accelerate their decarbonization efforts. The intention of this partnership is in line with Japan's climate ambitions.

The partnership aims to explore a wide range of decarbonization technologies across the entire steel value chain from iron ore mining to steel production, including the integration of Nippon Steel's steelmaking technology and Rio Tinto's iron ore processing technology to create an innovative low-carbon steelmaking process. emissions.

The partners agreed on a partnership model in line with the long-term and complex nature of the transition to carbon neutrality for the steel industry. This model allows partners to look forward to a long-term perspective that allows them to introduce new and promising technologies as the global transition to steel develops.

Eiji Hashimoto, Representative Director and President of Nippon Steel Corporation, commented, “To further move towards realizing our ambitious vision for decarbonisation, we have begun to explore our CO2 reduction scenarios that set targets for 2030 and 2050. Rio Tinto and our company have long had a deep and trusting relationship, and we are delighted to begin this partnership based on that trust. We are confident that this will be a powerful lever for our company in realizing an ambitious vision of decarbonization. ”

Rio Tinto CEO Jean-Sebastian Jacques commented: “One of the four pillars of Rio Tinto in the fight against climate change is partnering with customers to reduce our carbon footprint in our value chain. Nippon Steel is an important partner in our business with a very long history, and we are delighted to be able to expand our partnership to work together to reduce carbon emissions throughout the 100 value chain.