BHP Group, the world's biggest miner, has signed an agreement with an engineering and project management firm Hatch to jointly develop an electric smelting furnace pilot plant in Australia, with a goal to reduce greenhouse emissions to zero by 2050.

The project could reduce the carbon dioxide intensity in steel production using iron ore from the global miner's Pilbara mines. The equipment was expected to apply renewable electricity and hydrogen to steel production instead of coking coal.