Liberty Steel Group, part of Indian-origin tycoon Sanjeev Gupta’s sustainable industry leader GFG Alliance, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Paul Wurth and SHS – Stahl-Holding-Saar (SHS) to assess the building and operating of an industrial-sized, hydrogen-based steel making plant at Dunkerque in France. If developed, the plant would be one of the first operations of its type in France.
Paul Wurth is a Luxembourg-based company, and member of the SMS group, which has a proven track record as a plant builder and service provider. Through its partnership with Sunfire, a German technology provider which develops high performance electrolysers for highly efficient hydrogen generation, Paul Wurth is looking to drive the maturity of this technology for industrial application. SHS – with both companies Dillinger and Saarstahl – is a highly regarded German steel producer. The SHS-group is dedicated to the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement and is committed to producing iron and steel with a reduced CO2 footprint. The partners will consider using other hydrogen producers as part of the project.
Between them the partners are strategically focused on developing technology which will allow the steel industry to achieve its ambitious green targets, with LIBERTY undertaking carbon neutral programmes worldwide as part of its ambition to be carbon neutral by 2030.
Commenting on the news, Sanjeev Gupta, Executive Chairman of GFG Alliance and LIBERTY Steel Group, said, “This project will realise the potential of steel and hydrogen working together to solve each other’s problems. Our industry needs to reinvent steel production fast, as the need to cut our emissions gets ever more pressing against a backdrop of rising global demand for our products and legislative pressure to become carbon neutral. Hydrogen steel making has the potential to solve this issue and we’re determined to collaborate with like-minded partners to it make it happen. France is the ideal place to try, thanks to its strong industrial heritage, skilled workforce and low carbon energy infrastructure. Together with these technologically advanced and committed partners we are looking forward to exploring the potential for truly carbon neutral steel making, using green hydrogen to help us make GREENSTEEL products.”
