The Eurofer Association of European Steel Manufacturers welcomes the adoption by the European Commission of the European Green Deal concept for a transition to carbon-free metallurgy. This is stated in the published commentary of the association.

At the same time, according to Eurofer’s calculations, the cost of producing green steel (without greenhouse gas emissions) will be 35-100% higher than using current technologies.

In this regard, Eurofer supports the proposal of the European Commission to introduce carbon tariffs on the import of steel products.

According to the association, such protective measures should protect European metallurgy from competition from countries that do not pursue a consistent climate policy.

For the metallurgical industry, the transition to carbon-free technologies will lead to an increase in electricity consumption up to 400 TWh per year (for comparison, in 2018 all of Germany used about 55.6 TWh). Of these, 234 TWh will be spent on the production of 5.5 million tons of hydrogen, which will replace coke in the smelting of pig iron.

According to Geert van Pulvoorde, CEO of ArcelorMittal Europe Flat Products, it’s crucial that there are no carbon “leaks”, i.e. so that production facilities emitting carbon dioxide during operation are not transferred outside the EU, but switch to carbon-free principles.

 

Source: https://www.minprom.ua