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HIsmelt technology + Magnetite + Biochar = Green High Purity Pig Iron.

In the event that Steps 1 (Mining), and 2 (Biomassing) are achieved then the opportunity to produce pig iron would progress using Hismelt.

HIsmelt is a proven technology that was initially developed in Australia before being purchased by Molong Petroleum Machinery Ltd and developed commercially in China. The first HIsmelt plant started up in 2017 and the 2nd started up in 2019. There are 2 more HIsmelt plants scheduled for start-up in China in 2024, and 6 more plants being engineered in China and SE Asia.

HIsmelt smelts iron ore into High Purity Pig Iron ("HPPI") with lower environmental emissions than the conventional blast furnace technology and can produce "green" pig iron via using sustainably produced biochar as the reductant instead of coal (refer to ASX releases 09/02/2021 and 19/03/2021).

HIsmelt is an innovative smelting process capable of using the coarse Burracoppin concentrate as direct feed thus significantly reducing process costs at the mine site and adverse emissions at the smelter site (as neither sintering or pelletising of the ore is required).

The HIsmelt smelt process produces a net excess of electricity, which will be "green" electricity when using biochar as the reductant instead of coal. This green electricity may be able to be counted as mitigating carbon emissions. The excess electricity (estimated at 20MW during smelting operations) could potentially be used to produce green hydrogen for use in a first step in the smelt reaction in order to further reduce carbon emissions (refer to ASX release 19/03/2021).