GravitHy partners with Danieli on HBI plant
French greenfield low-carbon hot-briquetted iron/ (HBI) producer GravitHy signed an agreement with equipment supplier Danieli Group for the supply of a direct reduction plant, GravitHy said on 5 August.
The new plant will be located in Fos-sur-Mer, southern France.
The direct reduction plant will have a capacity of 2 million tonnes of HBI per year and will operate using 100% hydrogen.
GravitHy added that the agreement marks an important milestone ahead of the Final Investment Decision, which is planned for 2027.
To learn more about decarbonization projects in France and globally, see McCloskey’s Global Green Steel Profile.
The company said the plant will emit 90% less CO2 compared to traditional blast furnace-based steel production.
Earlier this year, GravitHy, Italian flat steel and tube producer Marcegaglia, and low-carbon fuel company Elyse Energy signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to develop complementary industrial projects in Fos-sur-Mer.
Marcegaglia is in the process of modernizing the Fos-sur-Mer plant, which it acquired in 2024. After the upgrade, which is scheduled for completion by 2028, the plant will produce green steel using electric-arc furnace (EAF) technology. The facility’s capacity will reach 2.1 million tonnes per year of carbon and stainless steel hot-rolled coil (HRC), which will be shipped for further processing to Marcegaglia’s plant in Ravenna, Italy.
Marcegaglia has traditionally relied on HRC imports, but the introduction of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) in 2026, followed by a significant reduction in steel import quotas from July, has substantially reduced import availability and increased costs.
According to market participants, European steelmakers will not be able to supply sufficient feedstock at prices that would allow Marcegaglia to continue operating as a re-roller without its own steelmaking capacity.
Author: Maria Tanatar
ArcelorMittal restarts BF at Fos-sur-Mer
ArcelorMittal restarted operations of blast furnace (BF) No. 1 at its Fos-sur-Mer steelworks in France at the end of July, meaning that the steelmaker is now operating all its BFs in Europe.
BF No. 1 had been idle since September 2023. The plant’s other unit, BF No.2, was restarted in December 2025 after an almost three-month stoppage following a fire.
Earlier this year ArcelorMittal also resumed operation at its Asturias facility in Spain and at Dąbrowa Górnicza in Poland.
All three relaunched BFs have a total capacity of around 7 mt of pig iron per year.
The return of capacities to the European market signals that steelmakers believe in sustained price recovery. Domestic steel coil prices have been supported by regulatory changes, such as the introduction of the new tariff-rate quota (TRQ) system from 1 July this year, which replaced previous safeguard measures. The new legislation reduced import quotas by 47% with the impact varying across exporting countries and products, depending on the structure of the country-specific quotas, and introduced a 50% duty for volumes exceeding the quotas, up from the previous 25% rate.
The implementation of the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) from the start of the year had already made imports riskier for buyers, and the new quotas only encouraged buyers to source steel coil locally, therefore supporting the price rise. The measures are expected to be the main driver of the uptrend this year, granting European producers a larger share of the market.
McCloskey assessed domestic hot-rolled coil (HRC) in Northwest Europe at EUR725/t ex-works on 31 July, up by EUR55/t month on month.
Author: Maria Tanatar