ITOCHU Corporation (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo, President, and COO: Keita Ishii, hereinafter "ITOCHU") announced that JFE Steel Corporation (Headquarters: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, President, and CEO Yoshihisa Kitano, hereinafter "JFE Steel") and Emirates Steel Arkan (Headquarters: Abu Dhabi, UAE, Group CEO: Eng. Saeed Ghumran Al Remeithi, hereinafter "Emirates Steel"), the largest steelmaker in the UAE, have agreed to participate as Core member companies to create a Supply Chain of the Ferrous Raw Material for Green Ironmaking with Low Carbon Emission, hereinafter “Ferrous Material”, to jointly promote detailed feasibility studies at the project site in Abu Dhabi.

As the global trend toward carbon neutrality, realizing decarbonization in the steel industry is an urgent matter and ITOCHU is working together with our Customers, the steel industry, to solve this issue.

The Ferrous Material to be produced by Emirates Steel shall be the raw material through a drastically decarbonized process. Electricity is expected to be switched from natural gas to renewable energy sources, including solar power generation. The CO_2, generated from the direct reduction of iron ore using natural gas, will be processed by carbon capture, utilization and storage ("CCUS"), which is Enhanced Oil Recovery ("EOR") as CO₂ injection into the UAE oil field. Also, we are considering switching to net-zero CO₂ emissions by performing the hydrogen reduction method in the future.

The Ferrous Material will be supplied to JFE Steel and other steel mills, and will contribute to decreasing CO₂ emissions. Since roughly 80% of the CO₂ generation during steelmaking is derived from the iron ore reduction process using coke in the blast furnace process, the Ferrous Material shall be an excellent alternative to decrease CO₂ emission.

In this project, ITOCHU will be responsible for the stable procurement of high grade iron ore, Emirates Steel will be responsible for the Ferrous Material, and JFE Steel will be responsible for utilizing the Ferrous Material. The three companies working together aim to build the supply chain for the “greenization” of the steel industry. Based on the business concept verification already conducted by the core member companies, we plan to proceed with detailed feasibility studies and supply chain construction. We will start producing the Ferrous Material in 2^nd half of 2025, and aim to supply it to the Asian market centered on JFE Steel.
One of the basic policies of ITOCHU's medium-term management plan - “Brand-new Deal 2023” - is to “Enhancing Our Contribution to and Engagement with the SDGs.” Through our participation in this project, we will contribute to the decarbonization of the steel industry and the achievement of the SDGs together with our partners.