Rio Tinto has signed a five-year offtake with SuperChar for locally made bio pellets at its Gladstone alumina refineries, targeting deliveries from 2028 and up to 90,000 tonnes of annual carbon savings.
Rio Tinto has signed a five-year offtake agreement with Australian bioenergy company SuperChar Limited (SCL) to supply locally made bio pellets to its alumina refineries in Gladstone, Queensland, the company said in a statement on 22 July 2026. Deliveries are targeted to start in 2028.
The deal follows operational trials and a feasibility study. Under trial conditions, bio pellets replaced up to 30% of the coal used to raise steam in the refineries’ boilers. Rio Tinto plans further demonstrations of blends ranging from 5% to 50% bio pellets, starting at its Yarwun refinery and then Queensland Alumina.
SCL plans to build a bio pellet plant in the Gladstone region using locally grown bana grass, a high-yielding perennial crop suited to Central Queensland that can be planted and harvested with conventional sugar cane equipment. The facility will start with capacity for 35,000 tonnes of pellets a year.
At full contract volumes, the switch could cut reported Scope 1 emissions by up to 90,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent a year under Australia’s National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting framework. That is direct fuel switching in an energy-intensive metals process, not an offset arrangement.
“Reducing our alumina refineries’ reliance on fossil fuel will require a mix of technologies, innovation and partnerships, and bio pellets are one of the practical options we are exploring,” said Armando Torres, managing director of Rio Tinto Aluminium Pacific Operations. SCL executive chairman Michael Palmer said the agreement showed the potential for “local, regeneratively grown biomass as an alternative industrial fuel”.
Rio Tinto is targeting a 50% cut in Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030 from a 2018 baseline, and net zero by 2050. Alumina refining is one of its harder problems, because it needs high-temperature steam that coal supplies cheaply. Substituting biomass for a share of that coal is an incremental but deployable step, subject to regulatory approvals and to SCL building out supply from late 2026.
