Stegra, formerly known as H2 Green Steel, says it fully intends to begin commercial production in about one year from now, according to Stephan Flapper, Stegra’s head of commercial, speaking at Kallanish Europe Steel Markets 2025 in Amsterdam on Wednesday.
The company aims to supply both green steel and green HBI as it believes that more than half of announced HBI capacity will not actually come online.
Stegra plans 21 million tonnes/year of DRI and 2.5m t/y of crude steel capacity through an EAF and slabcaster. This could then be ramped up to 5m t/y. The plant intends to produce HRC and CRC. Running on DRI and scrap, Stegra also plans to sell some HBI to regional steelmakers.
The plant in Sweden is still under construction with significant work to do. However, the company has hired a large construction team for the summer, when days are very long at the site.
“There is huge [green steel] demand coming at us,” said Flapper. This is largely because in many key manufactured products, steel accounts for a large proportion of embodied emissions but a relatively small proportion of the total cost. This means that reducing embodied emissions in steel is the most efficient and cost effective way for downstream manufacturers to decarbonise their products.
Despite this, a large number of planned DRI/HBI projects are unlikely to come to commissioning, Flapper believes. By 2030 incremental DRI/HBI demand could reach 32mt. Announced projects would more than cover this with 47m t/y of capacity planned to be commissioned. However, financing and other issues mean that Stegra expects only 21m t/y of additional capacity to actually be operating in 2030. This will be almost half of European and Middle Eastern capacity, with a small contribution from other regions.
This is one reason why Stegra is looking for growth options outside of the facility it is currently construction in Sweden.
