This joint fund is part of the national recovery and resilience plan and has received approval from the European Commission. ArcelorMittal is committed to the decarbonisation programme and is working closely with the Spanish and local Asturian governments to ensure affordable energy prices and sustainable new plants.
The Ministry of Industry is expected to issue its final decision with the agreed conditions, after which ArcelorMittal will have 10 days to formally accept the financing. In April, José Manuel Arias, President of ArcelorMittal Spain, confirmed that the company would continue to invest once an arrangement was in place to ensure favourable energy costs in the face of market fluctuations.
The Spanish government says that this project will enable ArcelorMittal to promote the use of green steel, while supporting the acceleration of this process in auxiliary industries and other major sectors. As the Spanish Minister of Industry, Héctor Gómez, has stated, this funding contributes to the modernisation of the industry, in line with the ecological transition, the use of renewable energy, environmental protection and the move towards a circular economy.
ArcelorMittal's €1 billion project in Spain includes the construction of a 2.3 million t/y green hydrogen-based direct reduced iron (DRI) unit, as well as a 1.1 million t/y hybrid electric arc furnace (EAF) to replace the existing blast furnace. The use of natural gas in the steelmaking process will be phased out and replaced with renewable hydrogen and syngas produced from waste and metallurgical gases. This DRI unit will be the first of its kind in Spain and is expected to reduce CO2 emissions by around 70.9 million tonnes when completed.
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