SSAB secures environmental permit for Lulea steelworks transformation

Nordic steelmaker SSAB received the necessary permit from the Land and Environmental Court in Umea, northern Sweden’s Vasterbotten County, to build and operate a mini-mill in Lulea, Norrbotten County, to replace the current blast furnace-based steel plant, it said in a Dec. 19 statement.

It said the permit enables a technology shift that would have positive effects on the environment and the climate and allow SSAB to meet the high demand for its steel products.

It further said construction preparations would now continue with detailed engineering and the building permit process. It added that once the new plant with electric arc furnaces, rolling mills, and further processing was running at full capacity, SSAB would decommission Lulea’s current blast furnace-based production system.

“This is a big day for SSAB and for the transformation to fossil-free steel production in Sweden. Now we can proceed with an investment that will result in reduced climate impact of national significance,” SSAB president and CEO Johnny Sjostrom said.

He added that the mill’s transformation would also create a more flexible and cost-effective production with a wider range of premium and special steel products with close to zero emissions and safeguard jobs in Lulea.

SSAB said the investment would result in a better cost position, higher efficiency, shorter lead times, and elimination of CO2 costs. The new mill would run on fossil-free electricity and be supplied with a mix of fossil-free sponge iron produced with its HYBRIT technology and recycled steel scrap.

Unlike traditional steelmaking, which relies on coking coal, SSAB’s HYBRIT process uses hydrogen, produced with renewable electricity, to produce sponge iron, which is then processed into steel. According to SSAB, the process emits water vapor instead of CO2 and largely eliminates CO2 emissions from the steelmaking process.

SSAB said the Lulea mill’s transformation would significantly reduce emissions to air and water, increase resource efficiency, and remove about 2.8 million mt/year of carbon dioxide emissions.

In total, SSAB’s transformation will enable a reduction of 10% in Sweden’s total CO2 emissions, of which 7% comes from Lulea and 3% from the transformation in Oxelosund, according to SSAB.

Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assessed the daily Northwest Europe HRC carbon-accounted steel price at Eur615/mt ex-works Ruhr on Dec. 18, down 22% since the start of 2024.

Hybrit initiative presents final report

Sweden’s Hybrit initiative will present the results of six years of research into fossil-free direct reduced iron-making technology in a final report to the Swedish Energy Agency, Kallanish learns from SSAB, a partner in the project.

Hybrit is a collaboration between SSAB, mining company LKAB and energy company Vattenfall, which have received several patents based on the results. The project is now continuing in the next phase where the process is to be implemented on an industrial scale.

The pilot phase resulted in the development of a new hydrogen-based technology for efficient fossil-free iron and steel production with 0.0 tonnes of CO2 emissions per tonne of steel. It also developed a new fossil-free iron product – sponge iron – that has significantly better properties than iron reduced with fossil gases such as natural gas. It also produced an efficient process practice for melting fossil-free sponge iron into crude steel in an electric arc furnace.

The project is the first in the world to demonstrate that the fossil-free value chain – from iron ore to steel – works on a semi-industrial scale. So far, more than 5,000 tonnes of hydrogen-reduced iron have been produced at the pilot plant in Luleå. Customers such as Volvo, Epiroc, Peab and many more are already using the fossil-free steel in vehicles, heavy machinery, buildings and consumer products.

Christian Koehl Germany


kallanish.com