Fortescue's Green Metal Project in Australia Produces First Hot Metal Using Metso DRI Technology

en.Wedoany.com Reported - Fortescue's Christmas Creek Green Metal Project in the Pilbara region of Western Australia has completed its first tapping, with the project adopting direct reduced iron (DRI) electric smelting furnace technology provided by Metso. Fortescue first announced this milestone on August 19, and on September 28 Metso further disclosed its process and equipment role in the project, confirming that the first hot metal was successfully produced by the electric smelting furnace.

The project is part of Fortescue's Green Metal pilot program. Its purpose is not to directly establish large-scale commercial steel production capacity, but to verify the applicability of Pilbara iron ore in low-emission smelting routes. Metso is responsible for the core smelting process design and provides the DRI Smelting Furnace electric smelting furnace technology; the related equipment began installation in September 2025. The project also adopts Metso's Circored fluidized bed direct reduction process. The technical route includes direct reduction with hydrogen, followed by further smelting of DRI in the electric smelting furnace.

Fortescue disclosed that this first tapping corresponds to the first successful operation of the electric smelting furnace. The project is currently still in phased commissioning. The team will continue to test and optimize process and equipment parameters before proceeding with subsequent scale-up based on the results. The first hot metal during the commissioning phase used a mixed feedstock. Producing green metal from Pilbara ore at commercial scale remains a subsequent technology development goal.

Metso stated that its DRI Smelting Furnace is primarily aimed at iron ore resources with relatively high gangue content that are poorly suited to conventional direct reduction routes. The electric smelting furnace can further smelt direct reduced products into high-quality hot metal suitable for downstream steelmaking, providing another technical pathway for Pilbara iron ore fines to enter low-emission ironmaking processes.

Fortescue currently positions the Christmas Creek project as a technology verification platform for a commercial green metal route. The company stated that subsequent commissioning will continue to be implemented in phases, and after process verification and stable operation are completed, it will then evaluate advancing to larger-scale production.