AVB Açailândia steel plant (Usina siderúrgica AVB Açailândia), also known as Aço Verde do Brasil steel plant, is a steel plant in Açailândia, Maranhão, Brazil that operates blast furnace (BF) and basic oxygen furnace (BOF) technology.
The AVB Açailândia steel plant is owned by Aço Verde do Brasil, the steel-making division of Brazil's Grupo Ferroeste.[1]
In 1989 Grupo Ferroeste founded the Gusa Nordeste iron plant in Açailândia, along the Carajás railroad in the state of Maranhão in northeastern Brazil. Pig iron production began at Gusa Nordeste in 1993, growing from 60,000 to 360,000 tonnes annually over the next decade.[2]
In 2008, with support from the Banco do Nordeste, Grupo Ferroeste launched plans to expand its Açailândia operation to include steelmaking.[2] The new plant, known as AVB (Aços Verde do Brasil, or Green Steel of Brazil) began producing liquid steel in December 2015[2][3], and added a facility for the production of wire rod and other laminated products in 2018.[2] The plant's initial production capacity of 420,000 tpa[3] has been increased to 600,000 tpa[4][5], with the addition of two new blast furnaces in 2018[4] and 2021[6].
Grupo Ferroeste has touted AVB as the world's first "green" operation, due to the fact that the plant's blast furnaces burn charcoal from the company's nearly 50,000 hectares of eucalyptus forests as a substitute for coking coal.[2][5] In March 2021 the Société Générale de Surveillance (SGS) certified AVB's steelmaking operations as carbon-neutral, noting that the plant released less than 0.10 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of steel produced, significantly less than the world average of 1.81 to 1.83 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of steel[5] or the range of 1.56 to 3.38 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of steel recorded by the World Steel Association at integrated steel plants worldwide.[7] Other initiatives undertaken by AVB to minimize fossil fuel consumption include the use of hydroelectric power, reuse of BOF and BF process gases, reuse of BF slag for cement production, and reuse of BOF slag to fuel its blast furnaces and basic oxygen furnace.[5][7]
Low-emissions/green steelmaking
This steel plant is associated with a green steel project tracked in the Green Steel Tracker. Details about the project are included below.
To access additional data, including an interactive map of steel power plants, a downloadable dataset, and summary data, please visit the Global Iron and Steel Tracker on the Global Energy Monitor website.
