Europe still lacks green steel necessities

Market participants are observing a lack of demand for green steel thus far and unavailability of cost-effective clean energy, panellists said at the Kallanish Europe Steel Markets 2024 conference in Milan last week.

There was consensus among panellists that a green steel revolution is taking place, but they disagreed on the order of magnitude.

Carlo Beltrame, chief executive at Donalam & LME at AFV Beltrame Group, said few are willing to pay a premium for green steel at present.

“From my perspective, [the revolution] should [be] derived from the market. And from the market nothing is coming. Nobody is ready to pay anything on top,” Beltrame observed.

Beltrame noted that within Europe itself, there are different takes on electric arc furnaces, electricity supply, levels of state aid for CO2 and data for decarbonisation. As a result, Europe is already creating several different playing fields.

“The direction to a greener Europe is inevitable. It will come,” proclaimed Henrik Adam, vice president of Europe corporate affairs at Tata Steel. But, with new rules comes the reality of people trying to bend those rules.

”I think we must be aware that wherever there is regulation, there is a circumvention,“ Adam added.

Adam cited green steel coming into Europe that is not impacted by the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM).

“We must have appropriate protection for the industry, cars, steel and other sectors to be able to spend money to become green without cutting the tree for which we are sitting – in terms of no jobs in the future to pay the taxes for the next generation,” Adam urged.

Adam said optimistically that Europe is approximately one or two more years away from appropriate hydrogen supplies.

Harssha Shetty, ceo of Jindal Shadeed Iron & Steel, offered a different angle toward Europe’s green steel transition.

“Europe can focus on engineering and use other pockets in the world to get low-carbon raw material,” he explained.

Shetty also highlighted China’s trend. “China is decarbonising fast. And China just recently announced 150 million tonnes of their steel production is going to be converted from blast furnace to EAF capacity,” he noted.

John Isaacson USA

kallanish.com