France and steelmaker ArcelorMittal have agreed on a 1.8 billion euro ($1.97 billion) investment to cut greenhouse emissions at a steel plant in Dunkirk, northern France, finance ministry officials said on Sunday (January 14).
The French government’s subsidy package, which could be up to 850 million euros, had already been cleared by the European Commission and is part of President Emmanuel Macron’s strategy to cut emissions at France’s 50 most polluting sites.
The money will finance electric furnaces and a direct reduction plant, which will cut French carbon emissions from the industrial sector by 5.7%, the finance ministry said in a statement.
ArcelorMittal Dunkerque (Dunkirk) has three blast furnaces with a total annual production capacity of 7 million tons. The two largest blast furnaces were temporarily shut down in March and April as demand fell due to a coronavirus pandemic, but one was restarted in August 2020.
In February 2022, ArcelorMittal announced that it would be transitioning its Dunkerque plant away from the BF-BOF production route as part of a €1.7 billion investment in its French facilities. The company will build out 4500ttpa of EAF capacity and 2500ttpa in DRI at Dunkerque with the aim of starting up the new equipment by 2027 and phasing out the old by 2030.
