{"id":78918,"date":"2025-08-19T02:57:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T02:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/78918\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T02:57:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T02:57:13","slug":"multi-billion-dollar-hot-briquetted-iron-project-gets-environmental-approval-in-port-hedland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/78918\/","title":{"rendered":"Multi-billion-dollar hot briquetted iron project gets environmental approval in Port Hedland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Western Australia’s environmental regulator has approved the construction of a $4 billion hot briquetted iron plant near the state’s largest export port.<\/p>\n

The processing plant, set to be built in Port Hedland, is backed by South Korean steel-maker POSCO and would refine raw iron ore from the Pilbara and turn it into direct reduction process hot briquetted iron (HBI), otherwise known as briquetted steel.<\/p>\n

The state’s Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) has approved the Port Hedland Iron (PHI) project to produce 2 million tonnes of iron briquettes annually.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The export town is the second-largest regional centre in the Pilbara, which provides around 40 per cent of the world’s iron ore.<\/p>\n

Hot briquetted iron is considered a more valuable product, which could more than double Australia’s iron ore export revenue, according to a report published in May by the Superpower Institute.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The PHI project would be located in the Boodarie Strategic Industrial Area, about 10km from of South and Port Hedland. (Supplied: PHI)<\/p>\n

The project, originally called the Port Hedland Green Steel Project, plans to be powered by renewables by 2050.<\/p>\n

Experts, however, are not convinced it will reach those ambitions.<\/p>\n

How green is it?<\/p>\n

For the refining process to be considered green, the plant will need to be powered by renewable energy.<\/p>\n

The EPA report outlines POSCO’s plan to be 100 per cent powered by renewable energy by 2049.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, the facility will be powered using gas.<\/p>\n

University of Western Australia sustainable engineering researcher Bill Grace said it would be incorrect to call the project green.<\/p>\n

“It’s potentially a green iron project in the long term \u2026 but it’s not a green project from the outset, that’s for sure,” he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Grace was not convinced the project would come to fruition because it was not clear how POSCO would source the hydrogen needed to displace gas.<\/p>\n

“POSCO aren’t proposing to produce renewable energy \u2026 so they would be buying that green energy from someone, which means someone has to have a bankable green hydrogen project to make this work,” he said.<\/p>\n

In recent months, several high-profile hydrogen projects, including in the Pilbara<\/a>, have been abandoned by investors.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Hundreds of millions of tonnes of iron ore is shipped out of Port Hedland every year. (ABC Pilbara: Charlie Mills)<\/p>\n

Paving the way<\/p>\n

In its report, the EPA acknowledged the project would create “significant” greenhouse gas emissions while powered by gas.<\/p>\n

But it reasoned it would provide a net benefit to global emissions by helping decarbonise the steelmaking process.<\/p>\n

It highlighted the project’s potential to pave the way for more renewable hydrogen projects.<\/p>\n

“The EPA also notes the broader potential of the proposal to act as a commercial enabler of the renewable hydrogen industry in Western Australia,” the report said.Moving on from port town<\/p>\n

Town of Port Hedland Mayor Peter Carter said the project would represent a major step forward for the area by diversifying its economy beyond exporting iron ore in its raw form.<\/p>\n

\"a<\/p>\n

Peter Carter says if it goes ahead the project would inspire job creation and business investment. (ABC News: Eliza Borrello)<\/p>\n

“We’ve always been an iron ore port and we’ll continue to be an iron ore port,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“But [now with] a company like POSCO coming to town and having a green [iron] mill in our town, it will attract so many other people to come and say, ‘If POSCO is there, why aren’t we there?’ It’s a big draw card for other industry to come to play.”<\/p>\n

In its report, the EPA noted potential risks to the town’s air quality from the project’s nitrous oxide emissions, especially when considering separate developments earmarked for the same area.<\/p>\n

The project would be located within the Boondarie Strategic Industrial Area, where several major mining companies are also developing hydrogen projects.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Mayor Peter Carter said he was not concerned about air quality in town with the project based 15km away. (ABC News: Charlie McLean)<\/p>\n

Cr Carter said local air pollution was not a concern for town residents.<\/p>\n

“I think it will be fine. The location is about 15 kilometres out of town,” he said.<\/p>\n

With environmental approval secured, the next step for the project would be gaining the consent of the area’s Kariyarra native title holders.<\/p>\n

That can not happen until the Kariyarra people reach a land use agreement with the WA government, something still being negotiated.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Port Hedland Iron, the body set up to manage the project, said the environmental approval was an important step as it considered a final investment decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Western Australia’s environmental regulator has approved the construction of a $4 billion hot briquetted iron plant near the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78919,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99,60208,60210,60209,58988,60207,60211,16802,37158,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-78918","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-decarbonising","12":"tag-green-iron","13":"tag-green-mining","14":"tag-green-steel","15":"tag-hedland-jobs","16":"tag-hot-briquetted-iron","17":"tag-pilbara-news","18":"tag-steelmaking","19":"tag-wa-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}