European Steel Association EUROFER President & ArcelorMittal Europe CEO Mr Geert Van Poelvoorde, while speaking at the multisectoral business federation FEDIL’s annual reception in Luxembourg, spoke on the urgent topic of the decarbonisation of European steelmaking and the many uncertainties that the sector faces. Mr Van Poelvoorde explained in detail what ArcelorMittal Europe has already done to decarbonise to date, and what it will take to move to the next, crucial phaseHe said “Building zero-carbon emissions steel plants across ArcelorMittal Europe means replacing the blast furnaces with DRI plants and building electric furnaces powered by renewable energy. Replacing the natural gas with green hydrogen in the DRI plants – once green hydrogen is available at scale and at a competitive price will bring our CO2 emissions down by 90%. And the remaining CO2 emissions will be captured and either stored or used. We have a detailed plan to do this and are ready to roll out this plan; we have the investment support of the Belgian, French, German and Spanish governments, and are preparing as much as possible, while we await funding approval from the European Commission, we submitted applications for funding, on time, last summer but are still waiting for a decision.”Speaking in his EUROFER capacity, he added that across Europe more than 60 industrial scale projects are about to be launched by steelmakers - potentially reducing the European steel industry’s CO2 emissions by 81.5 million tonnes by 2030: That matches the annual CO2 emissions per capita of around 13 million Europeans – or more than the populations of Belgium and Luxembourg combined. No other energy-intensive industry has set out such ambition.Ahead of votes on the ETS revisions in the environment committee of the European Parliament next week and a plenary vote in early June, Mr Van Poelvoorde said “The situation is very serious, and urgent. With the revised ETS that’s on the table today, even after the whole European steel sector has cut CO2 emissions by 30% and invested EUR 31 billion in capex and €55bn in opex, the European steel sector will be paying EUR 8.4 billion a year in CO2 costs in 2030 - at a time when we will still be investing heavily in the transition phase from blast furnace-based steelmaking to DRI-EAF steelmaking.”
European Steel Association EUROFER President & ArcelorMittal Europe CEO Mr Geert Van Poelvoorde, while speaking at the multisectoral business federation FEDIL’s annual reception in Luxembourg, spoke on the urgent topic of the decarbonisation of European steelmaking and the many uncertainties that the sector faces. Mr Van Poelvoorde explained in detail what ArcelorMittal Europe has already done to decarbonise to date, and what it will take to move to the next, crucial phaseHe said “Building zero-carbon emissions steel plants across ArcelorMittal Europe means replacing the blast furnaces with DRI plants and building electric furnaces powered by renewable energy. Replacing the natural gas with green hydrogen in the DRI plants – once green hydrogen is available at scale and at a competitive price will bring our CO2 emissions down by 90%. And the remaining CO2 emissions will be captured and either stored or used. We have a detailed plan to do this and are ready to roll out this plan; we have the investment support of the Belgian, French, German and Spanish governments, and are preparing as much as possible, while we await funding approval from the European Commission, we submitted applications for funding, on time, last summer but are still waiting for a decision.”Speaking in his EUROFER capacity, he added that across Europe more than 60 industrial scale projects are about to be launched by steelmakers - potentially reducing the European steel industry’s CO2 emissions by 81.5 million tonnes by 2030: That matches the annual CO2 emissions per capita of around 13 million Europeans – or more than the populations of Belgium and Luxembourg combined. No other energy-intensive industry has set out such ambition.Ahead of votes on the ETS revisions in the environment committee of the European Parliament next week and a plenary vote in early June, Mr Van Poelvoorde said “The situation is very serious, and urgent. With the revised ETS that’s on the table today, even after the whole European steel sector has cut CO2 emissions by 30% and invested EUR 31 billion in capex and €55bn in opex, the European steel sector will be paying EUR 8.4 billion a year in CO2 costs in 2030 - at a time when we will still be investing heavily in the transition phase from blast furnace-based steelmaking to DRI-EAF steelmaking.”
