ArcelorMittal said May 15 that it remains committed to decarbonizing its French operations and is working closely with the government as it looks to resume its plans later in the year.
Europe’s largest steelmaker said the European Commission’s Steel and Metal Action Plan, announced in March 2025, “provides optimism that the European Commission will implement efficient trade defense and carbon border adjustment mechanisms (CBAM) soon after that.”
With the European steel sector experiencing its deepest crisis since the financial crisis of 2009, the company had recently decided to postpone the implementation of its decarbonization projects in Europe.
“The revised steel safeguard measures that entered into effect on April 1, are a first step in the right direction. The European steel industry now requires effective limitation of imports at 15% of market demand as well as an effective CBAM that notably prevents resource shuffling. That would restore a level playing field on the European steel market,” ArcelorMittal said.
The company said it is confident of being able to restart its decarbonization plan after the summer and, in particular, to invest in the first electric arc furnace (EAF) at Dunkirk, an investment estimated at around Eur1.2 billion ($1.07 billion).
This investment is part of a Eur2 billion larger investment in France: Eur254 million already for Dunkirk and Eur53 million for its site at Fos, plus the Eur500 million investment in a new electric steel production unit under construction in Mardyck, which is set to be completed by the end of this year.
In February 2022, ArcelorMittal said that it would be transitioning its Dunkirk plant away from the BF-BOF production route. The company announced plans to build an EAF and a 2.5 million mt/year DRI plant in Dunkirk with the aim of starting up the new equipment by 2027 and phasing out the old by 2030, but then in 2024 backtracked on these projects.
At the moment ArcelorMittal’s Dunkirk site is carrying out works at the iron ore sintering line, blast furnace 4 and one of the steel mill’s converters.
Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assessed Northwest European carbon-accounted hot-rolled coil at Eur695/mt ex-works Ruhr on May 14, stable day over day.
