The steel group highlights the value of the Biscayan factory in its sustainability plan, which reaffirms the goal of making Sestao the world’s first emission-free steel plant.
Always on a tightrope, Arcelor Mittal’s Acería Compacta de Bizkaia (ACB), lives on small glimmers of hope that feed the feeling that there is an industrial future in the Luxembourg offices of the steel giant. A year ago, the multinational presented an ambitious production recovery plan to turn Sestao into a leading plant in terms of decarbonization, but the months have passed and the acceleration has not come.
Doubts have been growing in the factory, although the company reaffirms that in the medium term the ACB will play a fundamental role in some of the projects linked to emission-free production with green energies.
This is stated in the group’s latest sustainability report, which emphasizes that Sestao is going to be the first steel mill in the world with zero emissions in the entire production process. A commitment that was launched last summer and which is confirmed in this planning, in which 2025 is maintained as the year in which the Biscayan factory will reach full capacity with a production of 1.6 million tons (the current rate is around 400,000). This could be a determining factor in raising the current workforce, some 270 workers, to the 400 that would be needed to reach this maximum production level.
Beyond future calculations, it is significant that Sestao has a place in one of the major innovation projects to decarbonize steel production in Spain, in this case via green hydrogen. As Arcelor explains, the central element of the plan is a direct reduction iron ore (DRI) plant using green hydrogen. The first link in the project revolves around the Gijón plant, which will migrate from a steelmaking process based on the blast furnace and BOF converter route to one based on the DRI and electric steel mill route, reducing emissions.
Sestao, next stop
This new DRI plant in Asturias, the first in Spain and expected to come into operation before the end of 2025, will supply raw material to Sestao, the company explains, mainly in view of the forecast that scrap is not enough to cover the demand for coils. Between the green origin of the raw materials (ACB already uses a high volume of recycled scrap) and the use of electricity from renewable sources, the Sestao mill will achieve the milestone of reducing polluting emissions to zero, explains the Anglo-Indian steel company.
Paper holds everything and evidently good intentions are not going to dispel the doubts that have once again taken hold of the historic Basque plant, always under pressure due to high electricity costs and one of the first parts to be shut down in Europe when the numbers do not add up. The truth is that it is not excluded that this intermittency of the last years, with multiple stoppages of several months, could be prolonged in the short term, but the company maintains that the horizon for the plant is promising.
The recent agreement with Gestamp, reflecting the industry’s green shift to meet climate change targets, for the supply of low-emission steel favors the Left Bank plant, focused on high-strength coil mainly for vehicle components. In the midst of the transition to the electric vehicle, the exit from the automotive tunnel is a life insurance for Sestao. Arcelor itself points out in this report that ACB already supplies XCarb coils, with low levels of contamination, to automotive customers.
On the other hand, Arcelor Mittal is going to unify its three R&D centers in Spain under a single corporate structure, which includes the Sestao laboratory, although the change will not affect the research activity at the facilities in the Biscayan municipality.
