Our future – climate-neutral steel production

Time for major changes
The path to climate neutrality means one thing above all: we
need to move away from coal-fired blast furnaces to direct
reduction plants running on hydrogen. This change in produc-
tion represents a significant technology shift and requires the
establishment of reliable logistics for the continuous procure-
ment and supply of hydrogen.
First hydrogen blast furnace tests
It is a world premiere and a project supported by the IN4climate
initiative of the state government of North Rhine-Westphalia:
in blast furnace number 9 at our Duisburg location, we used
hydrogen instead of pulverized coal for injection in one of the
28 tuyeres in an initial test phase. This reduces CO 2 emissions,
because the use of hydrogen produces water vapor instead of
CO 2 . The findings from these initial tests will enable the use of
hydrogen to the entire blast furnace and gradually transfer it to
largescale industrial dimensions.
The green dream team: the direct
reduction plant with smelter
A direct reduction plant operates virtually emission-free using
hydrogen, or with low emissions using natural gas. The plant
does not produce liquid pig iron like a blast furnace, but rather
solid sponge iron. This must first be melted before it can be pro-
cessed into high-quality steel. We are developing an innovative
installation for this purpose: a melting furnace powered by green
electricity. In combination with the DR plant, it will supply the
liquid precursor product for steel production. The plan is to com-
mission the first industrial-scale DR plant in 2025. Until then,
the existing production operation will of course continue.
What is particularly important for our customers: with our blast
furnaces 2.0, we are producing pig iron that can be further pro-
cessed into all the products in our steel mills as before – without
any loss of quality, but in a climate-neutral way.

And there’s more: we are committed to our decision to signifi-
cantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and thus make our
contribution to the goals of the Paris Climate Accords. And as
early as 2022, we want to start offering our customers continu-
ously increasing quantities of CO2-reduced steel. As part of our
climate strategy, we are stepping up current activities and will
reduce emissions from our own production and processes as
well as from external energy consumption by 30 % by 2030. We
intend to be completely climate-neutral by 2045 at the latest.