Rio Tinto Commissions Largest Blast Furnace Carbon Capture Trial

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Rio Tinto and Shougang Group have commissioned an industrial-scale carbon capture facility at the Jingtang steel complex in Caofeidian, Hebei, China, marking the largest blast furnace carbon capture trial currently in operation. The unit processes up to 3,000 cubic metres of blast furnace gas per hour and is designed to capture up to 10,000 tonnes of CO2 per year.

The timing matters because blast furnace steelmaking accounts for roughly two-thirds of Rio Tinto’s Scope 3 emissions, and conventional blast furnaces cannot simply be swapped for hydrogen-based routes overnight.

Retrofitting existing mills with carbon capture is one of the few near-term levers available for assets that are decades old and still running. The Jingtang facility follows a smaller predecessor unit commissioned at the same site in 2024, a clear step up in scale.

Here is what the commissioning actually tells you about Rio Tinto’s decarbonisation architecture, and the open questions investors should be tracking as this trial generates its first real performance data.

What the Jingtang facility does and how it works

The facility captures CO2 from blast furnace gas, the concentrated stream of exhaust gases produced when iron ore is smelted into crude steel. Rather than sitting alongside the mill as a standalone unit, it is wired directly into Shougang’s existing ironmaking system, drawing on the plant’s own gas output as its primary input.

Reported commissioning was 28 September 2026, two days before this article. The key technical parameters are straightforward.

• Gas processing capacity: up to 3,000 cubic metres of blast furnace gas per hour
• Annual CO2 capture capacity: up to 10,000 tonnes per year
• Location and integration: Caofeidian, Hebei, China, with the facility designed to draw on waste heat from existing Jingtang operations

That waste heat integration is the detail worth pausing on. Capturing CO2 is energy-intensive, and running a separate power source to do it erodes the economics fast. By tapping heat that the plant already produces, the design has the potential to lower the cost of capture compared with a bolt-on unit running on its own energy supply.

“This commissioning is an important advancement within our approximately 30-year working relationship,” said Ramona Sim, Rio Tinto Iron Ore Sales and Marketing Vice President, framing the trial as a milestone in a long-running partnership rather than a one-off pilot.

From captured CO2 to syngas: the utilisation loop

The second distinguishing feature is what happens to the captured carbon. Rio Tinto and Shougang are exploring converting the CO2 into syngas, a fuel gas, and feeding it back into the steelmaking process, which would reduce the need for fresh fossil carbon inputs.

Here is the accounting nuance investors should hold onto: this is carbon capture and utilisation, not permanent geological storage. When that syngas is eventually burned, the CO2 can be released again, so the net climate benefit depends heavily on the system boundaries and the methodology applied.

The accounting distinction between carbon capture utilisation and permanent geological storage matters here: in a utilisation loop, CO2 converted to syngas and burned can re-enter the atmosphere, so the net climate benefit depends entirely on where the system boundary is drawn and which methodology the reporting company applies.

The waste heat loop and the syngas pathway together mean this is a system embedded in Jingtang’s production, not a plug-in module. That is what makes it technically interesting, and it is also what makes it harder to replicate quickly across other mills.

Where this fits inside Rio Tinto’s Scope 3 strategy

Now hold the facility’s 10,000 tonne annual capture capacity against Rio Tinto’s Scope 3 position. In 2024, the company’s Scope 3 emissions were 574.6 Mt CO2e on an equity basis, roughly 19 times its combined Scope 1 and 2 emissions, with about two-thirds attributable to steelmaking.

Ten thousand tonnes against 574.6 million. The mismatch is not an embarrassment; it is the point.

The strategic logic of Jingtang is not near-term abatement volume. It is about generating performance data and protecting the long-term relevance of Rio Tinto’s Pilbara ore, keeping blast furnace-grade iron viable for customers as climate policy tightens around them.

The spending is substantial and rising, and Rio Tinto is working with roughly 40 organisations across 10 countries on steel decarbonisation. The company also holds firm Scope 1 and 2 targets: net zero by 2050, and a 50% reduction by 2030 against a 2018 baseline.

What it does not have is a quantified company-wide Scope 3 reduction target.

Investor group ACCR’s April 2025 analysis characterises Rio Tinto’s approach as meaningful technology engagement that nonetheless stops short of binding emissions commitments.

For investors, that gap changes how you read the Jingtang news. Without a binding Scope 3 target, there is no specific emissions obligation to benchmark these partnerships against. The commissioning is best read as a strategic positioning signal, evidence of decarbonisation spending, not decarbonisation commitment.

EU carbon tariffs on Chinese steel imports are adding a second layer of pressure to the Jingtang equation: Shougang and other Chinese mills that export to Europe face direct financial penalties tied to their emissions intensity, which raises the commercial stakes for demonstrating measurable capture performance beyond domestic policy compliance.

How CCUS stacks up as a decarbonisation route for blast furnace steel

Why does carbon capture matter so much for blast furnace operators specifically? Because the alternative, replacing an integrated mill with a hydrogen-based direct reduced iron route, demands enormous capital and long lead times. For assets that cannot be retired or rebuilt in the near term, retrofitting capture is one of the few practical options on the table.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) makes the constructive case. In its carbon-constrained pathways, CCUS delivers approximately 15% of the total CO2 emissions reduction gap across industry, ranking it the third-largest decarbonisation lever behind energy efficiency and material efficiency.

That framing treats capture as a bridge, a way to cut emissions from existing assets that will keep running for decades whether or not cleaner routes mature on schedule.

Set against that is a more sceptical reading from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).

• The IEA bridging case: CCUS manages transition risk for the large share of global steel capacity that will remain blast furnace-based; it shares the load with efficiency gains and gradual shifts toward hydrogen routes.
• The IEEFA lock-in argument: the projected CCUS share of global iron production in 2050 has been revised down to roughly 37% in the IEA’s 2023 Net Zero scenario; heavy investment in blast furnace capture risks extending the life of high-emission assets and diverting capital from hydrogen DRI and electric arc furnace expansion.

It is worth noting that most operational CCUS projects today sit in natural gas processing, fertilisers, and power generation. Steel CCUS remains largely at pilot or demonstration scale, which places Jingtang among a small group of early movers rather than in a proven commercial field.

The lock-in question investors should not ignore

The downward revision to CCUS’s projected 2050 role tells you the technology’s future market share is genuinely contested, not settled. Jingtang is generating exactly the data the sector needs, but data it cannot yet convert into confident long-term projections.

The lock-in risk is the sharpest version of the critique: if capture retrofits make old blast furnaces economically viable for longer, they may delay the deeper shift to hydrogen DRI and electric arc routes. And because Jingtang is utilisation rather than permanent storage, its climate benefit hinges on accounting assumptions that remain open.

That tension maps directly to your investment question. Whether Rio Tinto’s capture partnerships become commercially replicable technology or stay niche demonstrations will shape the long-term demand outlook for blast furnace-grade iron ore.

What the commissioning signals and what remains unresolved

Be precise about what has actually happened here. Jingtang is an industrial-scale trial producing performance data, not a commercial plant delivering guaranteed abatement volumes. Key parameters, including the technology vendor and the confirmed ultimate disposition of the captured CO2, remain unspecified in public disclosures.

That does not make it insignificant. It makes it a milestone worth watching rather than a problem solved.

Shougang Group Vice President Zhu Guosen described the achievement as a significant milestone for blast furnace decarbonisation, noting its demonstration value for cutting emissions across conventional steelmaking.

The project fits within Rio Tinto’s wider portfolio approach, which spans BioIron, ore beneficiation, blast furnace efficiency, and carbon capture. Running several pathways at once is a hedge against genuine uncertainty about which technology, or combination, will end up dominating low-carbon steel.

BHP’s parallel consortium work on Asian carbon capture hubs shows that Rio Tinto is not operating in isolation: the major miners are converging on similar capture-retrofit strategies for Asian blast furnace capacity, which means the Jingtang data will be scrutinised by a wide industry audience tracking whether the economics hold.

Three variables will determine whether this trial converts into commercial relevance.

1. Scale-up: movement from the 10,000 tonnes per year trial capacity toward the volumes that actually matter for net-zero scenarios
2. Replicability: whether the design transfers across other Shougang and third-party blast furnace sites, or stays site-specific
3. Scope 3 framework: the development of a durable, quantified Scope 3 target against which these projects can be measured

Rio Tinto’s own analysis puts its customers’ processing emissions on a trajectory toward net zero around 2060, while it states an intention to help them reach net zero by 2050 instead. That decade gap is precisely where projects like Jingtang have to do their work, which is why the pace of scale-up is the single most important thing to track.

The 2050 gap: what investors should track from here

Pull the threads together. Rio Tinto has made a credible and growing commitment to steel decarbonisation, with US$200-350 million pledged through 2027 and roughly 40 partner organisations across 10 countries. Yet Jingtang’s 10,000 tonne annual capture capacity sits orders of magnitude below the scale that would materially move its 574.6 Mt CO2e Scope 3 trajectory.

That ratio is not a damning statistic on its own. It is a useful prompt: ask when, and at what cost, capture could reach a scale that genuinely affects that number.

The company holds a 2050 net-zero target for Scope 1 and 2, but still no equivalent Scope 3 commitment. The willingness to co-fund capture at scale without that target reflects a calculated bet that keeping Pilbara ore relevant through the transition is worth the spend, because blast furnace steelmaking will remain globally significant for decades yet.

Three signals to watch in the next 24 months

For a monitoring framework, focus on these.

1. Scale-up announcements from Jingtang or other Shougang sites, meaning any move from the 10,000 tonne trial toward commercially significant volumes
2. Rio Tinto’s decision on adopting or rejecting a binding Scope 3 reduction target at its next major climate disclosure update
3. The cost trajectory of green hydrogen and DRI relative to capture retrofit costs, because that competitive dynamic will shape blast furnace ore demand for decades

Today’s commissioning is the opening of a multi-year monitoring story, not its conclusion.

For readers tracking the investor pressure context around Rio Tinto’s climate disclosures, our dedicated guide to Rio Tinto’s ESG investor landscape examines how institutional divestment decisions interact with the company’s Scope 3 accountability gap.

This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. Investors should conduct their own research and consult with financial professionals before making investment decisions.

Financial projections and scenario figures cited here are subject to market conditions, policy developments, and various risk factors. Past performance does not guarantee future results.