In a first for its Nordic operations, specialised steel manufacturer, SSAB, is replacing the blast furnaces at its mill in Oxelösund, Sweden, with an electric arc furnace and associated raw material handling.
The company aims to have the new production system operational towards the end of 2026, which is part of SSAB’s plan to replace its five blast furnaces in Sweden and in Finland, with more flexible and cost-efficient mini mills powered on electricity. Although SSAB’s blast furnaces in the Nordics are among the most efficient in the world, currently, those furnaces account for more than 90 per cent of its carbon dioxide emissions.
“The change in Oxelösund is great news not only for the environment but also for our customers,” said SSAB Vice President Sustainable Business, Thomas Hörnfeldt.
“An electric arc furnace means we will be able to deliver large volumes of SSAB Zero to our main European markets with much shorter lead times than today.
“SSAB Zero is made using recycled steel and fossil-free energy – resulting in steel with virtually zero fossil carbon emissions.”
Hörnfeldt said an electric arc furnace in Oxelösund will enable SSAB to offer a much wider product portfolio, in its step towards a fossil-free future.
“Since we will be using mostly recycled steel scrap as the raw material in Oxelösund, we will also be able to offer our customers ‘closed loop’ solutions, where we utilise scrap from our customers’ production as a raw material and deliver our high-quality steel back to the same customer again,” he said.
“We have customers in many market areas and various industries. One typical customer group consists of large, listed companies with clear sustainability targets and strategy. Other customers make it their niche to be at the very forefront of the green transition, doing everything as sustainably as possible. And some of our customers choose to label part of their product portfolio as low-emission products.”
In a blast furnace, coal is used to remove the oxygen from the iron ore, resulting in the end product of liquid iron. This process uses coal and produces large amounts of carbon dioxide, making it economically nor environmentally sustainable in the long term.
In an Electric Arc Furnace (EAF), recycled steel or fossil-free sponge iron is melted into liquid form. Since the EAF can be easily started and stopped on a regular basis, the mills can swiftly be adjusted to market demand, operating on 24-hour schedules when demand is high and cutting back production when sales are lower.
With SSAB integrating new mini mills across its Nordic steel production system, they will have the capacity of carrying out all steps of steelmaking from melting fossil-free sponge iron and scrap to rolling products.
The new mills will typically have an electric arc furnace, a ladle furnace or vacuum furnace for precision control of chemistry, a strip or billet continuous caster for converting molten steel to solid form, a reheat furnace and a rolling mill.
Next month, SSAB Zero will debut at Bauma 2025.
.png){kind=small}
