Smelting giant Korea Zinc to invest $6.6b in green power

Bloomberg

After nearly half a century expanding its bread-and-butter business into one of the world’s largest metal smelting operations, Korea Zinc Co is setting its sights on renewable energy to cut costs and drive growth.
The Seoul-headquartered zinc, gold, silver and lead smelter plans to invest $6.6 billion over the next eight years developing solar and wind power generation and green hydrogen production, with aim of meeting its RE100 goal of using electricity generated entirely from renewable sources, according to Yun Choi, Korea Zinc’s vice chairman and heir apparent.
The investments are part of
a broader move to become
less dependent on traditional sources of energy, leveraging Korea Zinc’s world-class know-how in metal extraction, Choi said, insisting the company isn’t just following a trend some have dismissed as greenwashing.
“We have always been an extreme user of electricity,” Choi, 47, said. “As a group, all over the world, we probably spend $300 million on electricity a year. We always have several projects going on to de-carbonise and achieve cheaper electricity.”
Korea Zinc is also seeking to cut carbon emissions amid increasing pressure from regulators and investors to address environmental, social and governance concerns. Only 11 out of 46 metal and mining companies had carbon-reduction targets that match levels needed for the United Nations’ goal of limiting global warming, according to an analysis by Bloomberg Intelligence published in August.
Many of Korea Zinc’s renewable projects are in
mining-heavy Australia, where billionaire resources magnate Andrew Forrest is planning a factory for making hydrogen-producing electrolysers.
During a rare interview, Choi, pointed to a large photo hanging on the wall, showing a 124-megawatt-hour solar farm the company built in 2018 in Australia — the country’s biggest at the time. While the 500-acre farm is now providing a quarter of the electricity for Korea Zinc’s Sun Metals’ zinc refinery in Queensland, the company is seeking to boost that to 85% by 2025, with the remaining 15% coming from solar and wind projects under development at another subsidiary Epuron, an Australian energy company that Korea Zinc bought last year.
Korea Zinc is also looking to produce green hydrogen in Australia, with the ultimate goal of half a million tons by 2050.