Liberty Steel, part of British-based GFG Alliance, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Romanian government, the national gas company Romgaz, Eximbank Romania, and local educational institutions to install modern steelmaking technologies at its facilities in Galati, significantly reducing direct CO2 emissions, increasing the use of lower carbon energy sources. Under the agreement, Liberty Galati, the largest integrated steelworks in Romania, aims to invest in low carbon technologies to create the first Greensteel facility of its kind in continental Europe.
The Greensteel investment plans include, a DRI plant with 2.5 million mt capacity, which will use natural gas; two electric arc furnaces (EAF), one of which will be dedicated to casting slabs for Galati’s plate mill and the other for direct casting of hot rolled coil production. The EAFs will reduce CO2 emission per ton of steel by up to 80 percent, with emissions dropping to almost nothing. This will expand the annual production capacity to 4 million mt of liquid steel.
This investment plan will make Galati the first European primary steel plant in GFG to get going on a path to become carbon neutral by 2030.
“I have no doubt this project will be a great success and will put Galati on the map not only in Europe but globally as a new age sustainable low carbon steel plant built for the next generations to come,” said Sanjeev Gupta, executive chairman of GFG Alliance