European steelmaker using scrap wood in lieu of coal

Global steel producer ArcelorMittal, based in Luxembourg, has commissioned a 35 million euro ($38.2 million) plant at its Gent, Belgium, steel mill site that converts scrap wood into a bio-coal for use in its blast furnace.

Known as the Torero plant and using the torrefaction process, the first bio-coal made in the Belgian Torero plant was successfully used in a blast furnace in Gent on Dec. 18, ArcelorMittal says.

The installation will reduce annual carbon emissions from the plant by 112,500 metric tons annually by reducing the use of fossil fuel coal in the blast furnace, says the steelmaker. The Torero industrial-scale demonstration plant will convert 88,000 metric tons of waste wood into 37,500 metric tons of bio-coal annually.

The use of bio-coal in the blast furnace process will result in the production of biogas, which will be captured and transformed into ethanol by ArcelorMittal Gent’s Steelanol facility, which ArcelorMittal calls Europe’s first carbon capture and utilization (CCU) project.

The Torero project has been supported by European funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and Innovation Framework Program, according to ArcelorMittal.

ArcelorMittal Europe says its goal is to reduce its CO₂ emissions by 35 percent by 2030 followed by reaching carbon neutrality by 2050.

The global steelmaker does not operate any coal-fired blast furnace plants in the United States, having sold its blast furnace mills to Cleveland-Cliffs in 2020. The company currently operates a blast furnace facility in Canada, but is in the process of transitioning it to electric arc furnace (EAF) technology.

Remaining blast furnace operators in the U.S. and Canada who could consider scrap wood torrefaction as an alternative to the use of coal include Cleveland-based Cleveland-Cliffs; Canada-based Stelco Inc.; and Pittsburgh-based United States Steel Corp., which is in the process of being purchased by Nippon Steel Corp. of Japan.