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Anglo American partners with Nippon Steel to advance steelmaking decarbonisation

14 July, 2022

Anglo American and Nippon Steel Corporation (“Nippon Steel”) have signed a memorandum of understanding to work together to accelerate the transition to lower carbon steelmaking, building on the premium physical qualities of Anglo American’s iron ore to help drive emissions reduction.

Peter Whitcutt, CEO of Anglo American’s Marketing business, said: “This agreement is an important component of Anglo American’s approach to collaborating with our customers and helping to shape a greener future for the backbone of global infrastructure – steel. By working together, we can drive towards system-level decarbonisation and pave the way for sustainable steelmaking, underpinning the steel industry’s full potential as an enabler of society’s wider economic prosperity and social development.”

Anglo American supplies high quality steelmaking coal and iron ore to steel customers around the world. As part of this agreement, the two companies will research ways to optimise premium lump ore produced by Anglo American’s mines to decrease emissions via the traditional blast furnace (BF) steelmaking process.

The project will also focus on studying the use of Anglo American’s iron ore in the more carbon-efficient direct reduction iron (DRI) steelmaking method. DRI is estimated to generate significantly lower emissions than the more prevalent steelmaking routes of blast furnaces and basic oxygen furnaces.

Peter Whitcutt added: “Our product portfolio focuses on future-enabling metals and minerals that are critical to the transition to a lower carbon world. Working with our customers is one of the cornerstones of our efforts to reduce emissions across our entire value chain – the majority of which are associated with the downstream use of our products in steelmaking. We look forward to collaborating on this important work with Nippon Steel, with whom we have a relationship that spans more than five decades, combining our expertise for more efficient and less carbon intensive production processes.”

In October 2021, the publication of Anglo American’s Climate Change Report set out an ambition to reduce Scope 3 emissions by 50% by 2040, building on a pre-existing commitment to reach carbon neutrality across its operations by the same year. The steel value chain was recognised as key to achieving this ambition, with the majority of Anglo American’s Scope 3 emissions linked to materials sold into the industry. The report outlined a holistic approach to decarbonisation, predicated across multiple levers, including developing high-quality products to feed into more efficient and less carbon-intensive production processes, driving efficiency and minimising emissions, and working with customers to accelerate decarbonisation efforts.

In March 2021, Nippon Steel announced its "Nippon Steel Carbon Neutral Vision 2050," the company's flagship initiative to respond to climate change. Through this programme, shaped around the transition to innovative and more sustainable production methods, and the adoption of innovative technologies, Nippon Steel aims to reduce emissions by 30% by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

For further information, please contact:

Media Investors
UK UK
James Wyatt-Tilby Paul Galloway
Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]
Tel: +44 (0)20 7968 8759 Tel: +44 (0)20 7968 8718
Marcelo Esquivel Emma Waterworth
Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]
Tel: +44 (0)20 7968 8891 Tel: +44 (0)20 7968 8574
Katie Ryall Michelle Jarman
Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]
Tel: +44 (0)20 7968 8935 Tel: +44 (0)20 7968 1494
South Africa  
Nevashnee Naicker  
Email: [email protected]  
Tel: +27 (0)11 638 3189  
Sibusiso Tshabalala  
Email: [email protected]  
Tel: +27 (0)11 638 2175

Notes to editors:

Anglo American is a leading global mining company and our products are the essential ingredients in almost every aspect of modern life. Our portfolio of world-class competitive operations, with a broad range of future development options, provides many of the future-enabling metals and minerals for a cleaner, greener, more sustainable world and that meet the fast growing every day demands of billions of consumers. With our people at the heart of our business, we use innovative practices and the latest technologies to discover new resources and to mine, process, move and market our products to our customers – safely and sustainably.

As a responsible producer of diamonds (through De Beers), copper, platinum group metals, premium quality iron ore and steelmaking coal, and nickel – with crop nutrients in development – we are committed to being carbon neutral across our operations by 2040. More broadly, our Sustainable Mining Plan commits us to a series of stretching goals to ensure we work towards a healthy environment, creating thriving communities and building trust as a corporate leader. We work together with our business partners and diverse stakeholders to unlock enduring value from precious natural resources for the benefit of the communities and countries in which we operate, for society as a whole, and for our shareholders. Anglo American is re-imagining mining to improve people’s lives.

www.angloamerican.com

Forward-looking statements:

This document includes forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical facts included in this document, including, without limitation, those regarding Anglo American’s financial position, business, acquisition and divestment strategy, dividend policy, plans and objectives of management for future operations (including development plans and objectives relating to Anglo American’s products, production forecasts and Ore Reserve and Mineral Resource positions) and environmental, social and corporate governance goals and aspirations, are forward-looking statements. By their nature, such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of Anglo American or industry results to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.

Such forward-looking statements are based on numerous assumptions regarding Anglo American’s present and future business strategies and the environment in which Anglo American will operate in the future. Important factors that could cause Anglo American’s actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements include, among others, levels of actual production during any period, levels of global demand and commodity market prices, mineral resource exploration and development capabilities, recovery rates and other operational capabilities, safety, health or environmental incidents, the effects of global pandemics and outbreaks of infectious diseases, the outcome of litigation or regulatory proceedings, the availability of mining and processing equipment, the ability to produce and transport products profitably, the availability of transport infrastructure, the impact of foreign currency exchange rates on market prices and operating costs, the availability of sufficient credit, the effects of inflation, political uncertainty and economic conditions in relevant areas of the world, the actions of competitors, activities by courts, regulators and governmental authorities such as in relation to permitting or forcing closure of mines and ceasing of operations or maintenance of Anglo American’s assets and changes in taxation or safety, health, environmental or other types of regulation in the countries where Anglo American operates, conflicts over land and resource ownership rights and such other risk factors identified in Anglo American’s most recent Annual Report. Forward-looking statements should, therefore, be construed in light of such risk factors and undue reliance should not be placed on forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this document. Anglo American expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking (except as required by applicable law, the City Code on Takeovers and Mergers, the UK Listing Rules, the Disclosure and Transparency Rules of the Financial Conduct Authority, the Listings Requirements of the securities exchange of the JSE Limited in South Africa, the SIX Swiss Exchange, the Botswana Stock Exchange and the Namibian Stock Exchange and any other applicable regulations) to release publicly any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statement contained herein to reflect any change in Anglo American’s expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based.

Nothing in this document should be interpreted to mean that future earnings per share of Anglo American will necessarily match or exceed its historical published earnings per share. Certain statistical and other information about Anglo American included in this document is sourced from publicly available third party sources. As such it has not been independently verified and presents the views of those third parties, but may not necessarily correspond to the views held by Anglo American and Anglo American expressly disclaims any responsibility for, or liability in respect of, such information.