POSCO’s Hard Push for Diversification

Lithium batteries, solar and wind power plants and other green growth projects being tackled by giant steelmaker

POSCO has been actively searching for its future growth engines under a strategy aimed at turning itself into an integrated producer of high-tech materials such as lithium for lithium batteries, as well as solar and wind power-generating plants in the area of green growth.
Daewoo International, which it took over recently, will play a key role in spurring growth, POSCO officials said recently.
POSCO built a network of cooperation with all of its affiliates to foster its new growth engines in the green growth areas linking RIST, university research institutes, government agencies and professional organizations to set up a cooperative body connecting academics and research institutes.
The lithium development project is a key to the steelmaker’s huge endeavor to make its new growth engine projects pay off. The lithium battery will have a large market globally as it is being used in electric vehicles whose development and production will expand greatly in the future replacing fossil fuel-powered vehicles.
POSCO is in the midst of developing the technology to extract lithium from seawater. If successful, the steelmaker would be the first one to secure such technology in the world.
The giant steelmaker has also been speeding up its efforts to search for nickel, manganese, titanium and magnesium and has been producing 30,000 tons of nickel per year in a joint venture with SMSP Co. in New Caledonia, which has the largest deposit of the mineral in the world. POSCO also set up POSCO High Metal as a joint venture to produce manganese peroxide from next year. The steelmaker also agreed with UKTMP Co. in Kazakhstan to produce titanium slabs followed by the dedication of a magnesium plate plant in Sunchon, South Jeolla Province, capable of turning out 3,000 tons of the product per year to further strengthen its bid to be an integrated materials maker.
POSCO has also been looking into upgrading its self-sufficiency rate for rare earth elements and other rare metals. The company has been making moves to dig up rare earth in China, which has over 90 percent of such rare earth deposits in the world. The raw product has to be refined and POSCO is the only firm with the technology in Korea. The steelmaker has been in talks with Chinese firms over handing over the technology in exchange for the rights to explore for those resources in China.
POSCO is also considered to play a key role in the export of nuclear power plants from Korea, which has emerged as a huge export industry in recent years. The steelmaker is the producer of zirconium alloy rods, a core material for fuel rods for nuclear power plants.
POSCO is pushing hard on its project to find new growth motors and set up a special unit to take charge of promoting green growth and environmental management, named the Pan-POSCO Green Growth Committee.
The key task of the committee is to focus on the development of fuel batteries centered around POSCO Power. The fuel battery is a project to generate electricity through a chemical fusion of oxygen and hydrogen in the air, a highly-effective, clean and environmentally friendly power generation installation. POSCO already built a power plant using batteries able to generate 50 mw of power in the background area of Yeongil Bay.
The solar power generation project is also being pushed by POSCO and it has already been operating a solar power plant capable of generating 2 mw of solar power on the roofs of POSCO buildings at the Pohang and Gwangyang steel plants.
The steelmaker has also been working on the development of a non-rail taxi, involving the relocation of parking lots and key infrastructures located near ecological parks in Suncheon City to the center of the city and the building of a light electric rail linking the international wetland center and the city extending for 5 km.
POSCO has also been working on energy development using garbage through its affiliate POSCO E&E. The steel giant also concluded a tie up with SK Energy to jointly work on a project to produce gas from low cost coal, involving an investment of 1 trillion won to build a coal gas production plant with the capacity to produce 500,000 tons of synthetic gas.
POSCO took over Daewoo International to take advantage of its vast overseas network and steel products exports, about 21 of them products from POSCO. POSCO plans to focus on natural resources exploration through its new affiliate to find such minerals as iron ore and uranium. nw

POSCO Chairman Chung Joon-yang