INDABA Partnership Study Tour on Ironmaking Innovation in Southern Africa Launches in Cape Town

Exactly two weeks ago, an international and interdisciplinary team from the Industrial Decarbonization Analysis, Benchmarking, and Action (INDABA) Partnership kicked off a study tour to South Africa and Namibia to learn from iron and steel producers advancing decarbonization against the backdrop of a rapidly changing global economic and policy landscape. We learned a tremendous amount from the sites we visited and from one another. Over the coming weeks, we are excited to share our insights in a series of posts.

Participants on the study tour represented all five INDABA Partnership research organizations, as well as ArcelorMittal South Africa, Ex-Mente, Hatch, Mintek, Stegra AG, and Tata Steel.

The study tour began with a technical conference hosted by the University of Cape Town’s Energy Systems Research Group that brought together leading voices on future of iron and steel in the region. The conference was followed by visits to ArcelorMittal South Africa’s Saldanha Works and Vanderbijlpark Works, Sasol’s Sasolburg operations, HyIron’s Project Oshivela, and Samancor Chrome. We learned something valuable at every stop and are deeply grateful to our hosts for welcoming us and sharing their expertise.

One overarching takeaway from the trip was the striking juxtaposition between, on the one hand, the region’s exceptional potential for ironmaking decarbonization and, on the other, the severe economic pressure on the region’s industry. The region’s unique asset base and abundant renewable energy resources offer interesting possibilities to reinvent and reimagine its role in industrial value chains in Africa and beyond. More observations from the study tour to come soon—stay tuned!

Read the full story on LinkedIn.