IRON ore producer CRA said it was looking for new partners for its $200 million HIsmelt project in WA because Kobe Steel’s US unit Midrex Corporation had withdrawn as an active participant in the joint venture.
A spokesman for CRA, part of Rio Tinto, said the company was seeking an unspecified number of partners, but he declined to identify them, adding that research into the direct iron smelting process was continuing.
The company’s $100 million large scale research facility at Kwinana started operations in 1993 with the aim of establishing the commercial viability of the process.