ArcelorMittal bemoans lack of EU policy to help reduce steel CO2 emissions

There is still a lack of "meaningful" policy to help European steel reduce carbon emissions without being at an economic disadvantage compared to other regions, ArcelorMittal's head of strategy David Clarke said at the AM Europe Media Day in Paris Tuesday.

AM is calling for a "green border adjustment" under which steel imports into Europe would have to meet the same standards applied to CO2 emissions as European producers. Any shortfall would have to be compensated by the importer.
"Policy needs a level playing field otherwise there will be an erosion of the steel industry in Europe," said Clarke, adding that politicians need to provide financing incentives and priority access to renewables.

After 2020, the free carbon allowance surplus will expire for steel producers and Clarke said "unrealistic benchmarks could lead to an increase of marginal production costs by 50/mt in Europe."

WASTE GAS TO ETHANOL

In terms of addressing carbon emissions, ArcelorMittal plans to bring online a project to produce 64,000 mt/year of ethanol from blast furnace gas at Ghent in Belgium in 2020, having had to delay production due to certification issues, the company's vice president of technology and strategy, Carl De Mare, told S&P Global Platts at the Media Day.

The project will use microbes that feed on carbon monoxide to produce ethanol from gas emissions from blast furnaces.

The project, which was originally announced in 2015, has faced a more than two-year delay because AM was not able to secure certification in 2016 from the European Union until February 2017, De Mare said.

However, he said that that the delay had allowed AM to increase the production capacity of the project. The investment costs amount to Eur120 million.

Mare also said AM would start recycling 120,000 mt of waste wood into "biocoal" in 2020. The so-called Torero project started this year.