The global demand for climate-neutral products is encouraging iron and steel companies to switch to green steelmaking technologies with minimal greenhouse gas emissions. This was stated by the owner of the transnational group Liberty Steel Sanjeev Gupta, reports the Australian media outlet Financial Review.
Around the world, we are seeing an increase in costs associated with conventional steelmaking technologies, which will further strengthen the market position of environmentally-clean steel.
Sanjeev Gupta
In his opinion, premium prices for “green” steel will be an incentive for those who can produce such metal products with less environmental impact.
As the demand for green steel grows, there will appear certain competitive advantages for those who can produce environmentally friendlier products.
Sanjeev Gupta
He noted that Liberty Steel’s green iron and steel production facilities in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States re-melt scrap steel with the help of electric arc furnaces, and this technology allows reducing greenhouse emissions by two-thirds as compared to conventional blast furnaces using iron ore and coking coal.
According to him, steelmaking facilities in France, which produce rolled section steel for the construction industry and infrastructure projects, will very soon begin to produce “green” rails for the national railways of France.
Let us remind
Let us remind that the largest Japanese metallurgical company Nippon Steel in the medium term plans to take measures to decarbonize its production facilities, within which it intends to invest in the construction of large electric arc furnaces operating on scrap metal.
In addition, China began to prepare a program for the transition to green metallurgy with financial incentives, and British metallurgists called on the country’s authorities to develop a package of measures to stimulate iron and steel enterprises to switch to carbon-free production technologies – electrometallurgy and hydrogen.
In particular, the owner of British Steel – the Chinese corporation Jingye Group – is ready to invest 1.2 billion pounds in the “greening” of blast furnaces at its metallurgical plant in the city of Scunthorpe, but is waiting for incentives from the authorities. Electric arc furnaces, in which scrap metal is melted, can become a “green” alternative to blast furnaces. However, they consume large amounts of electricity, the prices of which are much higher in the UK than in Germany and France.
In the European Union, the investment plan for the “green transition” of the European industry amounts to 1 trillion euros during 2021-2030 in the form of concessional loans and subsidies. Moreover, the European Commission is going to allocate about 300 billion euros from the Coronavirus Relief Fund (the fund to combat the economic consequences of the impact of Coronavirus) specifically on the eco-modernization of industrial enterprises.
Decarbonization in Ukraine
In Ukraine, the only incentive for decarbonization of the steelmaking industry is the green metallurgy rule, according to which enterprises that have cut their CO2 emissions down to the European target level will be able to apply for a small reduction in the electricity tariff.
However, such rule exists in theory only. Six months after the adoption of the relevant law, the incentive did not get rolling due to the inability of the Cabinet of Ministers to develop the necessary legislative instruments.