Mining company Rio Tinto PLC plans to create another, larger, plant to process iron ore for subsequent steel smelting, operating on raw biomass instead of coking coal.
The decision was made after the success of the first pilot project implemented in Germany, writes MarketWatch. The project has been running for the past 18 months in conjunction with Finland’s Metso Outotec and the University of Nottingham.
“The results of the first test phase are very promising,” said Rio Tinto Chief Commercial Officer Alf Barrios.
The location of the new plant has not yet been selected.
The steel industry accounts for 8 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, MarketWatch noted. Creating yellow ore processing plants using biomass instead of coal would help Rio Tinto’s plans to reduce emissions.
Ukrainian agrarians have applied to the authorities of the Republic of Poland with a request to lay a broad-gauge railway line (with a gauge of 1520 mm) across its territory, which will connect the port of Polish Gdansk with the Ukrainian and Lithuanian railway networks to export agricultural products and ensure strategically important imports through western borders of Ukraine.
The corresponding appeal to the President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda and its Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki was sent by the leading Ukrainian agrarian associations: the All-Ukrainian Agrarian Council (VAR), the Agrarian Union of Ukraine, the Ukrainian Agrarian Business Club, the All-Ukrainian Association of Communities, the Union of Poultry Breeders of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Agrarian Confederation, reportedly on the VAR website on Friday.
According to the appeal, one of the largest and closest European ports to Ukraine is the port of Klaipeda (Lithuania), which has significant free transshipment capacities. However, due to differences in the gauge between Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic countries, there is a need to reload the contents of wagons at border crossings between countries or rearrange wagon bogies, which does not allow to fully realize the export-import potential of the port of Klaipeda.
In turn, the use of vehicles or containers as an alternative to railway transportation is poorly suited for transporting bulk bulk cargo (coal, ore, grain, metal) over long distances and increases their cost to an uncompetitive level. In addition, in the case of using container terminals, the capacity of the railway line will be limited by their capacity, which will also prevent full use of the potential.
“In our opinion, the laying of a railway line with a gauge of 1520 mm across the territory of the Republic of Poland, which will connect the Ukrainian and Lithuanian railway networks, as well as connect the port of Gdansk to them for the transport of goods and passengers, will solve the above-mentioned problems,” the appeal of the Ukrainian farmers.
At the same time, it is emphasized that such a logistical path will give significant positive financial and economic effects for Poland and Ukraine, not only due to an increase in export-import capacities, but also due to the unification of the economic space of Poland, the Baltic countries and Ukraine.
Such a project can be implemented through the reconstruction of the existing railway network and the construction of a combined track, or the construction of a separate railway branch.
As reported, in June 2022, Polish Deputy Prime Minister Yaroslav Kaczynski said that the issue of building this broad-gauge railway track had already been tentatively approved by the Polish and Ukrainian governments.
In early June, the VAR already proposed to build 300 km of broad-gauge railway tracks in Poland for direct grain deliveries to the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda, which would allow not to overload the contents of wagons at the Ukraine-Poland and Poland-Lithuania border crossings due to the difference in railway gauge in these countries.
As part of the waste treatment reform, Ukraine is implementing the first major investment project: within two years, two modern incineration plants with a total processing capacity of 145,000-220,000 tonnes of waste per year will be built in Kyiv region.
According to Minister of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources of Ukraine Ruslan Strilets, on September 8 he and Head of Kyiv Regional State Administration Oleksiy Kuleba, Mayor of Boryspil Volodymyr Borysenko, Mayor of Brovary Ihor Sapozhko and Mayor of Fastiv Mykhailo Netiazhuk signed a memorandum of cooperation, effectively securing the intention to build waste processing enterprises.
“Two modern plants for household waste treatment will be built on the territory of Boryspil, Brovary and Fastiv communities. Their uniqueness lies in the use of several processing technologies at once. In particular, organic waste (food waste) will be processed with subsequent production of biomethane, as well as deep sorting of waste with the allocation of resource-valuable materials – scrap metal, glass and plastic,” the minister wrote on Facebook on Thursday.
The planned capacity of the common plant for the Brovary and Boryspil communities will be approximately 110,000-120,000 tonnes of waste per year, Fastiv – 35,000-100,000 tonnes per year. The construction period will be two years, the projects will be implemented at the expense of loans from European banks.
According to Strilets, negotiations are underway with potential investors who have long been waiting for the adoption of a law on waste management in Ukraine. The minister recalled that the waste management reform was launched by the adoption by the Verkhovna Rada in July of bill No. 2207-1-D, which creates transparent conditions and guarantees for investments in this sector of the economy.
The minister specified that Kyiv region was chosen for the implementation of the reform, since amid the Russian full-scale invasion, the capital and the capital region demonstrated the stability and invincibility of the entire country.
The Ukrainian Energy Association (UEA), together with specialists from the Institute of Oil Transportation, proposed President Zelensky, the Cabinet of Ministers and the Ministry of Energy a package of promising directions for the development of the oil refining and transportation of oil and petroleum products, which include the construction of a new modern oil refinery.
“These proposals have both a short-term and a long-term implementation period and should be included in the action plan for the post-war reconstruction and development of Ukraine,” the UEA said on its website.
In addition to the construction of the refinery, the UEA materials also present two more such key areas as the modernization and branching of the network of fuel product pipelines and the completion of oil pipeline routes to open new markets.
“All the proposed cases contain technical and financial and economic calculations, the implementation of which can begin now,” the association says.
At the same time, the UEA has not yet made public more detailed information regarding its proposals submitted to the president and government.
“Experts from the UEA and the Institute of Oil Transportation are convinced that taking into account these proposals will increase the level of Ukraine’s energy independence and send a signal to global energy companies and international financial organizations to invest in restoring Ukraine’s energy sector,” the association said.
The United States intends to build granaries in Poland on the border with Ukraine to facilitate the export of Ukrainian grain to Europe by rail, US President Joe Biden said on Tuesday.
“We are going to build temporary granaries on the border with Ukraine – in Poland,” he said during a speech broadcast by the White House on Tuesday.
Biden noted that this plan, if implemented, would allow exporting grain from Ukraine to Europe, and from there to other parts of the world. He said that he is currently “working closely with European partners to release 20 million tons of wheat from Ukraine to world markets.”
The US President also acknowledged that the plan “will take time” to implement.
It is planned to build an IT campus for representatives of creative industries in Lviv region, Artem Honcharenko, President of the International Technology Transfer Association (ITTA) and the Fund for Reconstruction and Development of Ukraine, has said.
“Currently, we are implementing such a project, we have found a site in Lviv region. The legal process will begin soon. We plan to build the first campuses during the summer, where it will be possible to attract foreign partners and IT specialists, creative industries, youth to create a platform for discussion and start-ups,” Honcharenko said during a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Thursday.
He clarified that there are already agreements on the allocation of a land plot in Lviv region with an area of 8 hectares. The project provides for construction of campuses no more than five floors, the total area of spaces will be 10,000 square meters.
According to Honcharenko, the campuses of the town will be able to host up to 1,000 participants, and construction of places of temporary residence is also envisaged. In addition, a rehabilitation center as part of the technology park will be designed for 500-600 people.
Previously, the creation of such towns was planned in Kyiv region, Kharkiv, Odesa, and Lviv.
“We postponed construction of such a center in Kharkiv to the post-war period. We will start talking with local authorities about what needs to be taken into account for construction of such a town of creative industries in terms of restoring the city,” the ITTA president said.
“We would like to create not only a place for communication, but also, perhaps, with flexible taxation conditions, with the possibility of entering international markets,” he stressed.
The Ukrainian non-profit organization International Technology Transfer Association (https://itta.org.ua/) was founded in 2020, its activities include software development, development of the IT sector in Ukraine. In April 2022, ITTA co-initiated the creation of a charitable foundation for Reconstruction and Development of Ukraine to organize and deliver humanitarian aid to Ukraine.
BUILD, CREATIVE INDUSTRIES, HONCHARENKO, IT CAMPUS, LVIV REGION
