"Addressing climate change is a common challenge facing the international community today. The green and low-carbon transition is a subversive revolution to the traditional steel value chain, and the global steel industry is exploring various ways to green decarbonize the steel production process." On January 11th, at the launch ceremony of iron ore EPDs (Environmental Product Declaration) and the concentrated release ceremony of iron and steel EPDs, Lei Pingxi, chief engineer of China Gold Mining Enterprises Association, pointed out that the transformation of super large-scale iron and steel production mode has put forward new and higher requirements for iron ore, but also brought great challenges.

Over the past 20 years or so, the quality of iron ore has gradually declined, Lei said. According to publicly available data, the average grade of iron ore used in sinter production has decreased from 63.9 percent in 1998 to 61.5 percent in 2021, while the average content of silica and alumina in iron ore has increased by 39 percent and the content of phosphorus has increased by 40 percent. That is our challenge." He specifically pointed out.

"Demand for high-quality iron ore is increasing as the pace of carbon reduction synergies continues to accelerate." Lei Pingxi introduced that the proportion of pellets in the charge structure continues to rise, the capacity of direct reduced iron keeps growing, and breakthroughs have been made in green iron ore compaction technology and hydrogen reduction technology. Large mining enterprises are also actively responding to the challenges, increasing investment in green and low-carbon production, promoting major process and technology innovation, carrying out research and development of green raw materials, promoting the ultimate efficiency of process and equipment, green and low-carbon upgrading, and increasing green energy substitution, making unremitting efforts to realize green production and supply of green mineral products.

At the same time, in order to meet the needs of green and low-carbon development of the whole iron and steel industry chain, Baowu Resources and related mining enterprises responded quickly and took positive actions to timely start the iron ore EPD work. Iron ore EPD is not only the basic support for ferrous metal mining and beneficiation industry to achieve the "double carbon" goal, but also an important embodiment of iron ore raw materials to help the iron and steel industry to achieve the "double carbon" goal. This work has also been highly valued and strongly supported by China Iron and Steel Association, the steel industry EPD platform and the industry. "I should say the efficiency of the work is very high." Lei Pingxi, from the start of this work in August 2022, the drafting group was organized in September to start the drafting work. At the end of September, the drafting and release of PCR(" Natural and Processed Iron ore "product category rules) was completed, and then the development and release of iron ore EPDs were carried out.

"Iron ore, as a raw material for iron and steel iron, becomes the first product related to the steel industry chain to build and publish an EPD report since the first centralized release of the EPD report for steel products." Lei Pingxi believes that the successful release of the iron ore EPD will greatly promote the mine to strengthen research and development efforts, carry out major key technology innovation, optimize the production process, adjust the product structure, improve the utilization efficiency of resources, accelerate the improvement of energy efficiency, and strengthen the competitive strength of the green mild steel iron raw material market. Promote mining enterprises to integrate green transformation, subversion and innovation, energy saving and jump reduction, ecological cycle and other all-round, full-chain into the whole life cycle of mines, and make new and greater contributions to building a green and low-carbon steel supply chain and jointly promoting the green, low-carbon and high-quality development of the steel industry.

In addition, Lei Pingxi expressed high praise for the steel industry EPD platform. He said that with a high sense of urgency and responsibility, the relevant construction and operation parties of the EPD platform of the steel industry adhere to the customer as the center, the service as the core, to promote the participation of the whole industrial chain as the lead, concentrate resource advantages, gather industry wisdom, gather four parties together, listen to the suggestions of all parties, high-quality response to the demand of the steel industry EPD release, remarkable results.