ArcelorMittal is pressing forward with the commissioning of its hydrogen furnaces in Kraków, despite pausing any financial decisions on green hydrogen-ready direct reduced iron (DRI) plants last November.
The project represents an investment worth PLN 52m ($12.6m). However, the world’s second-largest steelmaker previously said it would delay final investment decisions (FIDs) on decarbonisation projects after the European policy, energy and market landscape had not moved in a “favourable direction.”
Read more:ArcelorMittal freezes green hydrogen DRI projects, blaming slow policy progress
ArcelorMittal’s initiative in Poland has seen hydrogen-ready annealing furnaces installed at the existing plant, which will reduce CO2 emissions by 50% due to the elimination of ammonia from the annealing process.
The sheet metal painting lines are expected to be consumed by customers in the household appliances or construction industries looking to decarbonise areas of their business.
“Replacing installations that have been operating until recently with the new ones with a 100% hydrogen atmosphere is a technological leap,” explained Kamil Kaczmarek, Maintenance Manager at the cold rolling mill and Technical Leader of the project.
“It is worth noting that these are the only hydrogen furnaces from overseas in Poland and the first in the ArcelorMittal Group in Europe.”
Before announcing delays, the company had originally planned to commission hydrogen DRI sites in France and Spain this year, with scheduled DRI installations at plants in Belgium and Germany also anticipated to start up in 2026.
Commenting on the project development, Piotr Kochanski, Project Manager from the Investment Department at ArcelorMittal, said the process was complicated.
“We first had to demolish the old dome furnaces to install nine new furnace stations in their place,” he explained. “Some of the equipment needed for their construction came by ship from the US to Antwerp (Belgium), and then reached Krakow in large-size transports.”
Additionally, ArcelorMittal previously announced it would build a hydrogen production plant for its Kraków branch in partnership with Linde. In an online statement, ArcelorMittal said the two companies will begin construction of the plant “soon.”
Read more:ArcelorMittal to build hydrogen plant in Poland to decarbonise galvanising operations
Will DRI be key to producing sustainable steel?
Steel production accounts for 8% of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions1, making it one of the most polluting industries. With around 1.4 tonnes of CO2 emissions per tonne of steel produced2, against a backdrop of increasing environmental concerns, the need to clean up the process that produces a vitally important material only continues to grow.
Steel, in the most basic sense, is made by mixing carbon and iron at temperatures above 1,400˚C. Primary steelmaking uses a product dubbed Pig Iron – smelted iron from ore, which contains more carbon than needed for steel.
Steelmakers can use a system that bubbles oxygen through molten pig iron, creating equal oxidisation throughout the metal, in doing so, removing excess carbon, while also vaporising or binding impurities made up of elements such as silicon, phosphorus and manganese.
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