India Steel Industry: Actively Advancing Low-Carbon Accounting

Under rapid industrialization, India’s continuous development and growing population drove increased demand for essential infrastructure, urban housing, and commodities necessary for a modern economy. Steel, at the core of economic growth, is poised for a doubling of demand in India by 2050 under the International Energy Agency's (IEA) Stated Policies Scenario (STEPS).

In 2018, India emerged as the world’s second-largest steel manufacturer, with its crude steel production second only to China. As China's steel demand reaches its peak, India is set to lead the next wave of growth in the global steel industry, which will offer significant support to its economic development while also confronting major challenges. Among these challenges, one of the most critical is the carbon emissions generated by steel production. Decarbonizing steel production is particularly challenging due to:

1. The lack of commercially available production technologies with near-zero carbon emission;

2. Higher costs of near-zero carbon emission production routes compared to conventional processes;

3. Higher transaction volumes and competitive pricing of materials in heavy industry production;

4. The long operational lifespans and capital-intensive nature of heavy industrial facilities, which could lock in carbon emissions for decades.

Governments, enterprises, and civil society could collaborate in multiple ways to accelerate the steel industry’s transition to net-zero emissions. These measures include:

• Establishing early markets for low-emission materials and products;

• Developing new carbon emissions reduction technologies;

• Establishing specific timelines for emissions reduction;

• Utilizing carbon accounting methods and standardized definitions, etc.

In recent years, the standard formulation of steel production with low carbon emissions has gained increasing attention. Notably, many materials and products, including those from the steel industry, are traded in international markets. Developing isolated national standards could lead to inconsistency. While each country establishing its own standard system in isolation could lead to confusion, interoperability of low-carbon-emission steel manufacturing standards and accounting methods can minimize trade barriers.

Although various organizations and institutions have developed carbon accounting methodologies for the steel industry—both at the production stage and the product level—these methods often lack global coverage and are not widely adopted. The following table shows key carbon accounting methods tailored to the steel industry:

Table: Carbon Accounting Methods for the Steel Industry

Currently, the 2 most widely used carbon accounting methods in the steel industry are developed by the World Steel Association (the LCI and CO₂ Method) and by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which includes several different standards. The World Steel Association's current carbon emissions data collection process (2022) includes data from over 220 steelmakers worldwide. These steel mills collectively produce approximately 485 million tons of steel, representing 25% of global steel production.

The ISO 14404 series standards provide carbon accounting methodologies for steel production based on specific process routes. However, the adoption of carbon accounting methods varies significantly across countries and regions. If all members of the ISO Technical Committee (TC) adopted the ISO 14404 standards, it would cover approximately 1.75 billion tons of steel production, equating to nearly 90% of global steel output.

India is at a crucial moment in developing its carbon emissions accounting methodology for its domestic steel industry, with both public and private organizations working on this initiative. The efforts include updating the carbon accounting methods to support the domestic carbon credit trading scheme (CCTS), which will be launched in 2026. This program covers the steel industry as well as other sectors such as petrochemical, chemistry, and aluminum industries.

The Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) of India is currently consulting on different emission measurement methods for industries covered by the CCTS. In April 2023, the Indian Ministry of Steel also established 14 working groups to support the development of its "Green Steel Roadmap."

Many Indian steel companies have already gathered detailed carbon emission data as part of the World Steel Association’s climate action data collection, mainly focused on CO2 methods. These companies include major Indian steel producers such as Jindal Steel & Power (JSP), Jindal Southwest Steel, Vizag Steel, Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), and Tata Steel. This provides an effective means for Indian steel mills to compare their carbon emissions against other companies and demonstrate their annual progress in carbon emission reduction.

In the Chinese steel industry, PKU Pioneer's exclusive PSA CO purification technology and steel mill gas carbon capture technology are powerful solutions for steel enterprises to achieve efficient emission reduction. Blast furnace gas (BFG) and basic oxygen furnace gas (BOFG) are the main secondary energy sources for long-process steelmaking enterprises. CO and CO₂ together account for approximately 50% of the total volume in BFG, and around 70% in BOFG gas. Steel mills can enrich the CO and inject it back into the blast furnace, thereby saving coke and coal consumption in the smelting process. CO₂ can be captured using low-power-consumption, low-cost methods for applications such as carbon sequestration, enhanced oil recovery, steel slag mineralization, and chemical product synthesis. Carbon capture from steel production gases and CO purification for blast furnace injection requires separating CO₂ and N₂ from CO in the feed gas. And the BFG heating value technology also requires CO enrichment to improve the CO content to increase the heating value.

PKU Pioneer's PSA CO purification and steel mill gas carbon capture technologies offer advantages including high economic efficiency in CO enrichment, stable operation, integration of CO₂ removal and capture, low CO₂ capture cost, and low energy consumption. With more than 50 PSA CO purification cases, PKU Pioneer helps steel mills effectively solve their steel production tail gas treatment challenges to further reduce overall carbon emissions.