Champion Iron believes that the steel industry is undergoing a structural shift in its steelmaking methods, including an increased focus on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the iron and steelmaking processes. It said this dynamic could create rising demand for higher grade raw materials and a shift towards reduction technologies used to produce liquid iron, such as the use of DR in an electric arc furnace (EAF) instead of the blast furnace (BF) for liquid iron production.

As a result, the company has decided to deploy a research and development programme which aims to develop technologies and products to support the steelmaking transition from the BF method to the DR-EAF method, while supporting emissions reduction in the BF process.

Champion Iron said that utilisation of the DR process requires higher quality raw materials. Given the high-quality nature of the iron ore concentrate produced at its Bloom Lake mining complex in Quebec, Canada, the company believes it can become a key player in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the steelmaking process. During the last year, the company has demonstrated, at laboratory scale, its ability to upgrade its current iron ore concentrate product to more than 69% Fe using a flotation process.

Additionally, as part of its commitment to participate in the iron and steel industry decarbonisation, the company has financed and collaborated with a Europe-based company that holds a proprietary cold agglomeration technology. The objective of the cold pelletising technology is to substantially reduce the emissions linked to the agglomeration of its material.

Champion Iron said that promising laboratory results demonstrated that carbon emissions related to agglomeration could be reduced by more than 95% with this technology. The company intends to further explore the potential of cold pelletising technologies towards industrial trials with this Europe-based company.

David Cataford, CEO of Champion Iron, said: "Our company's commitment to reduce our industry's environmental footprint is at the forefront, as we initiated a programme to develop and test new products aimed at reducing emissions in the steelmaking process. We are also building on the market's robust appetite for our high-grade iron ore concentrate with our growth projects."