South Korea hydrogen DRI plant

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South Korea hydrogen DRI plant is a direct reduced iron (DRI) announced steel plant in South Korea.

Location

The map below shows the approximate location of the plant in South Korea:

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• Location: unknown, Republic of Korea
• Coordinates (WGS 84): 36.647511, 128.131064 (approximate)

Background

In February 2023, South Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (Motie) announced the country's Steel Industry Development Strategy for Transition to Low-Carbon Steel Production, which involves plans to decarbonise South Korean steel sector. This involves setting up of a hydrogen direct reduction technology-based demonstration plant of capacity 1 mtpa by 2030. A 1mn t/yr demonstration project will be done for hydrogen reduced steel before the commercialisation of 3mn t/yr reactors. There will be a 10 kg/h demonstration reactor for naphtha electrolysis before the commercialisation of a 240 kg/h reactor. As of January 2025, there has been no updates on the plant.

Plant Details

Table 1: General Plant Details

Phase	Plant status	Announced date	Start date
Main plant	Announced	2023-02	2030
Expansion	Announced	2023-02	–

Table 2: Ownership and Parent Company Information

Phase	Owner	Owner company GEM ID
Main plant	Other	E100000001753

Table 3: Process and Products

Phase	Steel product category	Steel products	Main production equipment	Detailed production equipment
Main plant	crude	HBI	DRI	1 DRI plant (hydrogen based, demonstration project)
Expansion	crude	HBI	DRI	1 DRI plant (hydrogen based, commercial scale)

Table 4: Crude Steel Production Capacities (thousand tonnes per annum)

*Please see our Frequently Asked Questions page for an explanation of the different capacity operating statuses.

Phase	Capacity operating status*
Main plant	announced
Expansion	announced

Table 5: Crude Iron Production Capacities (thousand tonnes per annum)

*Please see our Frequently Asked Questions page for an explanation of the different capacity operating statuses.

Phase	Capacity operating status*	Sponge iron/DRI capacity	Nominal iron capacity (total)
Main plant	announced	1000 TTPA	1000 TTPA
Expansion	announced	3000 TTPA	3000 TTPA

Articles and Resources

Additional data

To access additional data, including an interactive map of steel power plants, a downloadable dataset, and summary data, please visit the Global Steel Plant Tracker on the Global Energy Monitor website.