World's largest steel company will be carbon neutral by 2050
The world's leading steel and mining company, ArcelorMittal, has announced its commitment to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050.
“As the world's leading steel company, we believe we have a responsibility to spearhead the efforts to decarbonize the steelmaking process that has a significant carbon footprint today,” said Aditya Mittal, President and Chief Financial Officer of ArcelorMittal.
According to him, the company is working on various pilot technologies that have excellent potential. In Hamburg, Europe's only hot briquetted iron (DRI) smelting plant in an electric furnace (EAF) will test not only the ability of hydrogen to reduce iron ore and the actual process of making rolled metal.
“Hydrogen has great potential, but given the significant transition cost, we also believe in the ability to work on solutions for the traditional integrated route ... Policies to ensure that steel remains competitive in decarburization will be critical to achieving this goal especially since every region of the world is developing at a different pace. We intend to actively engage with governments to chart a path forward that will allow the steel industry to make significant progress, ”Mittal said.
ArcelorMittal has identified two low emission steelmaking routes, both of which can lead to carbon neutral steelmaking: Hydrogen - DRI route that uses hydrogen as a reducing agent, and steelmaking using carbon from recycled resources - in the form of biomass or carbon waste.
While both routes have the potential to achieve carbon neutrality in steelmaking by 2050, the company believes that recycled carbon can produce results sooner and significantly contribute to reducing CO emissions 2 already in this decade, while industrial scale production along the Hydrogen-DRI route is unlikely to operate on an industrial scale until 2030 due to current high costs.
The company has also defined the policy framework it believes is necessary to make zero carbon steel production a reality.
ArcelorMittal will provide further details on its plans to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 in its second Climate Action Report, which is expected to be released before the end of 2020.
ArcelorMittal is a member of the Energy Transition Commission (ETC) and an active participant in the Net Zero Steel initiative, implemented by ETC in partnership with the World Economic Forum. ArcelorMittal is also actively involved in the Science-Based Objectives Initiative (SBTI) to define an achievable SBT for the steel industry, given the two different routes in force today.