Diagnóstico de geração de valor aplicado às características ambientais do minério de ferro na siderurgia

Abstract

Environmental issues are gaining importance every day in organizations, both to address impacts from its operations and to promote value addition to its chain involving suppliers and customers. The origin of these pressures began with increasing environmental restrictions worldwide. This trend also been driven by a few companies that have seen it as business opportunity involving its supply chain of raw materials, improvement of image and as a strategy of closer customer relationships through B2B marketing. Suppliers of raw materials sectors such as the mining of iron ore, are singled out as one of the sectors that has great appeal to expand its business in this line, since the main consumers of their industry raw materials (steel) have been very environmentally pressed in their operating countries. Despite numerous technological advances, steel is an industrial activity which requires the consumption of non-renewable natural resources (iron ore and coal) in large scale and thus generates large environmental impacts in its activities, if technologies to mitigate them are not applied.

China, the largest consumer of iron ore and largest steel producer in the world, is going through a wave of environmental pressures on the steel industry. The central government has closed steel mills that are environmentally inefficient and pressing others to undertake major investments to make adjustments, aiming to mitigate environmental risks. It is known that the quality of raw materials used in steelmaking processes is a major factor in the generation of its environmental impacts. Thus, for example, iron ores of better quality (Brazilian) tend to be preferred over other of lower quality (Australian). This may favor the generation of value for beneficial environmental features that iron ore of best quality brings to the steel making process, favoring the reduction of CO2 emissions in order to reach the requirements for adherence to environmental standards issued by government. Consequently, operating expenses can be reduced, to meet, among other, targets for reducing CO2 emissions. Adding value to the supplier of iron ore may be the result of higher payments or increase of market-share by supplying high-quality ores. Thus, this thesis aims to perform an analysis of the possibility of creating value by applying Brazilian iron ore at the expense of Australian competitors to reduce costs of metal Chinese clients metallic burden in order to reach CO2 emission targets imposed by the Chinese government.