Melbourne—South Korean steelmaker Posco and Australia's Fortescue Metals Group are set to collaborate on green hydrogen in a partnership that could see Posco importing both iron ore and renewable hydrogen from the latter.
Posco said Dec. 15 that a meeting between Posco chairman Choi Jeong-woo and Fortescue founder and non-executive chairman Andrew Forrest resulted in an agreement to "develop green hydrogen business by implementing renewable energy."The announcement came a day after Fortescue inked a memorandum of understanding with Japan's Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Iwatani Corp. to potentially supply Japan with liquid hydrogen.
Posco said it would increase its iron ore purchases from Perth-based Fortescue, which mainly ships to China, and could use it to make its corrosion-resistant steel product, PosMAC.
Fortescue will look at using the PosMAC steel product to build its solar energy facilities in Western Australia.
"Posco will first participate in Fortescue's green hydrogen business by implementing renewable energy and actively engage in other larger scale projects in the future," the South Korean company said.
Posco told the 40th Korea-Australia Business Council in November that it would look to import green hydrogen from countries such as Australia.
Fortescue in August signed an agreement with South Korea's Hyundai Motor Co. and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization to collaborate on renewable hydrogen technology.
