Within the Center East, three initiatives of this sort had been already introduced for Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
“We now have greater than 50 MOUs (memorandums of understanding) signed with clients. So, we think about that these initiatives will advance within the subsequent six months to a 12 months,” Nascimento mentioned.
Vale is anticipated to construct and function iron ore focus and briquetting vegetation on the hubs, and its native companions will construct the required logistics infrastructure.
Whereas operations within the Center East will initially be powered by pure gasoline, the miner is learning the usage of inexperienced hydrogen in Brazil.
“Brazil is just not going to begin with pure gasoline. Right here, we are going to begin with hydrogen. We now have this risk as a result of nation’s competitiveness in power,” Nascimento mentioned.
“The thought is to create these hubs to supply this low or nearly zero-carbon product and export it as a density. We’ll export, in quotes, power by way of product.”
The standard metal trade makes use of iron ore and coke (coal), which produces a excessive diploma of carbon emissions. For every ton of metal produced, two tons of CO2 are emitted into the environment.
“Once you go the electrical route, it drops to a ratio of 1 ton of metal to 1 ton of CO2 if pure gasoline is used and to zero if hydrogen is used,” she mentioned.