Waterford offers former Duferco steel plant for sale
Waterford Capital Partners has acquired the former Duferco Danish Steel plant in Frederiksvaerk, Denmark, and is offering the entire facility for sale and relocation.
The package comprises a 300,000 tonnes/year merchant bar hot rolling mill built by Moeller & Neumann, and two cold drawing lines for bright steel, Kallanish hears from Waterford. Included in the sale are 14 overhead travelling cranes, a service centre, laboratory, maintenance workshop, approximately 1,000 spheroidal graphite cast iron rolls and the associated spare parts inventory.
The range of products includes hot rolled merchant bar flats of 25-160mm, rounds of 16-70mm, squares of 16-50mm, angles 30-80mm, and more. In cold drawn bright steel, the two lines produces flats from 20 x 4mm-150 x 30mm, rounds and squares of 20-50mm, with hexagon achievable.
The guidance price given by Waterford is € 12.5 million ($14.3m) for the complete plant, ex-works Frederiksvaerk.
The plant was in production until closure and is offered as a working line. According to Waterford, it has been modernised continuously by Danieli. A dismantling and relocation tender is being run in parallel, Waterford notes. A buyer takes over the plant ex-works and will need to work with one of the recommended dismantling parties, it says.
Author: Christian Koehl
Stargate expansion targets affordable green hydrogen for steelmaking
Estonian electrolyser manufacturer Stargate Hydrogen has secured a €20.6 million ($23.7m) EU grant to scale up its operations to supply “affordable” green hydrogen to steel, chemicals, and other energy-intensive sectors, Kallanish learns from a company statement.
The EU Innovation Fund grant will help expand the firm’s manufacturing facility in Tallinn, Estonia, to produce 250 MW/year of electrodes, 150 MW/y of stacks, and 66 MW/y of electrolyser systems.
“With the help of the Innovation Fund, we truly step up our game,” comments Marko Virkebau, chief executive of Stargate Hydrogen. “After the factory expansion is finalised, Stargate will become one of the largest electrolyser manufacturers in Europe.”
The factory opened last year with an initial manufacturing capacity of 140 MW/y of electrolysers. At the time, Stargate said it was “well-positioned” to bring down the cost of green hydrogen and help decarbonise sectors such as steel, fertilisers, and chemicals.
The company says its alkaline electrolyser technology uses a ceramic-based catalyst material, instead of precious metals, which reduces the reliance on imported critical raw materials, while enabling highly efficient hydrogen production. According to its website, this leads to “significantly lower hydrogen production costs and makes the electrolysers affordable for end-users.”
High cost of green hydrogen is one of the key barriers to its wider adoption, despite its decarbonisation potential. A recent report by trade body Hydrogen Council found that the steel sector accounts for just 5% of binding clean hydrogen offtake agreements globally, with the industry favouring decarbonisation routes other than hydrogen in the near term.
Yet, Stargate says its project is expected to avoid 3 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions in the first ten years of operation by “supporting broader deployment of affordable green hydrogen across hard-to-abate industries”.
Author: Reethu Ravi