The agreement was signed on the occasion of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, at a signing ceremony attended by the CEO of ArcelorMittal Aditya Mittal and the Spanish Minister of Industry Reyes Maroto. The funding, which is part of the government’s Recovery and Resilience Plan, will support the construction of an electric arc furnace and DRI plant in Gijón, which are crucial to the company’s CO2 emissions reduction goals in Europe.

The implementation of this project represents the first step of the company’s decarbonisation journey in Asturias. 

Thanks to the demand for green hydrogen generated by the project, the Gijón DRI project will become an enabler of new projects associated with the green hydrogen production value chain. ArcelorMittal announced in February this year that it is an anchor sponsor of Hydeal Espana, a consortium which will manage the development, funding and construction of renewable hydrogen production and transmission infrastructure. These complementary projects are expected to have a significant impact on the generation of new economic activity and job creation in Asturias.

In order to implement the described transformation of the site in Asturias, an application has been submitted under the EU’s CEEAG framework, and is awaiting approval from the European Commission before the project can proceed.

Aditya Mittal, CEO of ArcelorMittal, said:

“We were proud to announce last year, our EUR1bn plan to build a 2.3 million-tonne green hydrogen direct reduced iron (DRI) unit, complemented by a 1.1 million-tonne hybrid electric arc furnace (EAF) in Gijón – which in turn will enable ArcelorMittal Sestao to be the world’s first full-scale zero carbon-emissions steel plant. The agreement we have signed with the government of Spain this week is the next step in our decarbonisation journey in Spain, and provides some of the funding certainty we need to move to the next phase of this project.”