ArcelorMittal to become carbon neutral by 2050

"Our vision is to use environment-friendly hydrogen from renewable energies in future to produce totally ‘green’ steel in Hamburg," said Lutz Bandusch, Vice President of ArcelorMittal Europe - Long Products. The project is a milestone en route to climate-neutral steel production. Westhagemann stressed: "We support the strategy and the will of ArcelorMittal, a major industrial company and one of the largest energy consumers in our city, to produce green steel in future."

ArcelorMittal has produced steel in Hamburg for over 50 years by reducing iron ore with natural gas. This process emits about half the amount of CO2 released during the blast furnace process. The company now plans to use hydrogen in a new reduction plant initially through so-called steam reforming of natural gas. This will be used until sufficient environment-friendly hydrogen is available for climate-neutral steel production. Hydrogen will be produced by electrolysis. ArcelorMittal intends to set up a 50-megawatt plant on its own site and to exploit Hamburg's planned supply of hydrogen.

Renewable energies must be expanded on a large-scale to build the new reduction plant and to produce hydrogen economically in future. A hydrogen infrastructure must also be set up and and funding is needed to produce CO2-free environment-friendly steel. "We are building new capacities for environment-friendly hydrogen in Hamburg," Westhagemann added. The proximity to offshore wind facilities on the coast is ideal for making commerce, industry, public transport and local traffic across Hamburg climate-neutral in future. 

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