Vietnamese enterprises buy iron ore mines in Australia: Wise

Prof. Dr. Pham Pho assessed that Hoa Phat’s move is very wise, helping this business to have a stable and long-term supply.
On May 31, Hoa Phat Group announced that it had successfully purchased an iron ore mine in Australia.

Accordingly, on May 28, the Australian Federal Foreign Investment Commission (FIRB) approved the contract to buy 100% of the shares of the Roper Valley iron ore mine project of the Australian subsidiary of Hoa Phat Group. . Roper Valley iron ore mine has estimated reserves of 320 million tons. After the transaction is completed, Hoa Phat is the owner of the Roper Valley iron ore project with an estimated reserve of 320 million tons and a mining capacity of 4 million tons/year. Hoa Phat said that the group will continue to research to invest in buying some new iron mines in Australia, in order to ensure a long-term supply of at least 50% of the Group’s iron ore demand (equivalent to 10 million tons of iron ore). /year). Besides, the raw material that constitutes up to 30% of the steel price is coking coal, which is currently imported by Hoa Phat from Australia – the world’s largest coking coal supplier market. The Group is studying to buy a few Australian coking coal mines in the future to gradually become self-sufficient in this important production material. Talking to Dat Viet, metallurgical expert – Prof. Dr. Pham Pho assessed, this step of Hoa Phat is very wise, helping businesses to proactively source raw materials in a stable and long-term way. According to him, normally Australia rarely sells the whole mine, but now, due to political and trade tensions with China, Beijing has limited the purchase of iron ore from Canberra, on condition that Australia sells the whole ore mine to Vietnam. should be easier without raising prices. Roper Valley iron ore mine has estimated reserves of 320 million tons. Photo: Hoa Phat “With this step, Hoa Phat can take the initiative in the source of raw materials, only have to worry about exploitation and transportation. Enterprises must send people to supervise and operate, along with a team of workers in your country to exploit. Most of Vietnam’s steel mills rely on scrap iron for production. However, the current scrap iron and steel is limited, the price has increased, the quality is poor, not to mention the difficulty in transportation. It can be said that enterprises producing steel by electric furnace technology, using scrap iron will face many difficulties in the future. Therefore, this step of Hoa Phat is very important,” said Professor Pho. The expert also highly appreciated Hoa Phat’s plan to buy coking coal mine. However, he also noted, buying coal mines to produce coke is very difficult, the production process of coke costs a lot of money. Therefore, it is often easier for a business to cooperate with a partner in Australia than to be completely self-sufficient. “Of course, businesses choose depending on specific conditions to produce coke. To produce coke, it is necessary to use fat coal, not coal. The carbon content in it is high and contains a certain amount of oil. When heated, , the amount of oil evaporates, leaving pores. These pores will make the air flow, not clogged and it will provide fuel continuously. If the business can buy ore mines, and at the same time associate with partners in Australia to produce coke, it is very good. This depends on the operating ability of the business, if you want to produce cups, you must have good experts, and ore is simple – just dig, treat and bring back. If the direction of the business is to buy coke mines, then transporting coke to Vietnam, coking production in Vietnam is better and also simpler, because the production process of coking coal has many other products. For example, when coking, the gas that rises contains a lot of fuel, in which CO is very high, gives high value of electricity, provides for the process of electricity production, boiler heating…”, Prof. TSKH Pham Analysis Street. He also noted that producing steel from ore has a more complicated process than producing steel from scrap (iron scrap) and is also cheaper. The quality of steel depends on the manufacturing process. Even scrap steel wants to produce good steel, it must be carefully selected and classified. Currently, scrap steel in the world is still small, with many impurities. When buying, manufacturing enterprises must carefully select and classify, which costs a lot of money. Regarding the problem of environmental pollution treatment, Professor Pho said that blast furnaces are more complicated than electric furnaces that use scrap iron and steel. When the blast furnace emits gas, it is necessary to invest in equipment to recover coal dust for reuse. Similarly, the exhaust gas contains a lot of CO, which if left to fly into the environment is very toxic, so it must be recovered to put back to burn in electric furnaces or furnaces. This does not mean that electric furnaces do not have to deal with environmental pollution. The electric furnace itself must also be equipped with equipment to capture waste gas, coal dust and filter. Because technology and equipment to deal with environmental pollution are very expensive, according to Prof. Pho, it is important whether steel factories are willing to invest or not.