ArcelorMittal has advanced two significant investments at its Dunkirk and Mardyck sites in northern France, a new electric arc furnace at Dunkirk and new electrical steel production line at Mardyck, the company says.
At Dunkirk, ArcelorMittal is building a 2 million tonnes/year EAF and a ladle furnace. Preparatory work has been under way for several months, and €300 million ($336m) has already been spent on preparing the site and securing equipment.
The public consultation held with France’s National Commission for Public Debate (CNDP) has been published, and permit applications have been filed. A further public consultation opened on 15 October, with a first public meeting scheduled for 16 October, the company details in a note obtained by Kallanish.
The EAF will produce steel emitting three times less CO2 than the blast furnace route, at 0.6t of CO2/t of steel. It will run on a mix of scrap, HBI or DRI, and pig iron.
At Mardyck, the first three lines of the new electrical steel unit started operating in March and now employ 200 people. Two more lines, an annealing and pickling line and a reversing mill, are under construction. Equipment installation is nearly complete, and first tests are expected in spring 2027. Once these lines start up, the unit will be fully integrated.
All of ArcelorMittal’s electrical steel in Europe is now produced in France, at Mardyck and Saint-Chély-d’Apcher. Electrical steel is a key material for electric motors and generators.
“In Mardyck, our teams are continuing to ramp up a new strategic production line to support the decarbonisation of our customers. In Dunkirk, the milestones already reached and the work now visible demonstrate the concrete progress of our low-CO₂ steel production project,” notes general director of ArcelorMittal France Bruno Ribo.
The Dunkirk and Mardyck projects represent investments of €1.3 billion and €500 million, respectively. They are ArcelorMittal’s largest in Europe in the past ten years (see Kallanish passim).
