Bhubaneswar, February 24, 2010
As the world grapples with the crisis of global warming and its negative impact on our environment, world’s fourth largest steel maker, POSCO, has stepped in with an innovative solution to save marine ecology and help fisher-folk.

The Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in South Korea has decided to team up with POSCO for a marine project, which will create aquatic forests and reefs using by-products from steelmaking. Under the agreement, the nation's largest steelmaker will supply steel slag to the ministry for free, so that the government agency can utilize the material for the construction of underwater facilities aimed at fostering fish farming locally.

Steel slag is produced during the separation of the molten steel from impurities in furnaces. The material, which occurs as a molten liquid melt, is a complex solution of silicates and oxides that solidifies upon cooling.
It is an environmental-friendly material that captures carbon dioxide during production, and its ferrous contents are known to enhance the growth of marine plants. Growth of marine plants and fish is being affected by global warming. Lack of iron in the seas is leading to loss of plants and, consequently, loss of fish.

POSCO and Pohang Research Institute of Industrial Science & Technology, a technology institute established by the steel giant, have conducted a pilot operation using slag for marine facilities in sea areas on the nation's southern and eastern coasts for the past 10 years. As the material turned out to be effective in creating seaweed beds and biologically safe, the steel maker developed Triton, a brand of steel slag which is used to create the reefs.

POSCO’s work in this area has bearing on POSCO-India’s sea-side project in Jagatsinghpur district. “The high-technology work of POSCO actually helps the environment”, says Mr. Choon-Kuhn Kwon, Managing Director of POSCO-India. “There will be long-term benefits for fisher-folk of our project area, in case we apply this method after due permission from governmental authorities. We have always said that apart from creating a world-class steel plant, we will work towards developing a world-class community in our project area”. As a socially responsible company, we know we are accountable for the state of our project community, he said. “This work with the marine eco-system is significant since it is using POSCO’s products and technology developed at POSCO’s own research institute. “That is the quality of life that we bring to all our project sites”, he said. POSCO’s work will mean significant breakthroughs in low-carbon technology and help address deforestation and climate change. POSCO is committed to planting 2 million trees in its project area and will use the FINEX technology, which is environment-friendly, for its steel plant.

Mr. Kwon added that land acquisition process at its plant site is on-track and the company expects to start earth-filling work shortly.