Salzgitter AG and Tenova signed a Memorandum of Understandin

2019-04-03

Apr. 3, 2019 - A concrete step towards future-oriented, climate-friendly technology for steel production: Tenova – a company of the Techint Group specialized in innovative solutions for the metals and mining industries – and Salzgitter AG – among the leaders in innovative and sustainable steel and technology products – declared officially a mutual cooperation for the realization of SALCOS® (SAlzgitter Low CO2 Steelmaking) by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on April 02, in the context of Hannover Messe 2019.

SALCOS® is a revolutionary concept for a significantly CO2-reduced steel production, commonly developed by the two companies. The aim is to undergo a stepwise transformation process of the integrated steel making route, moving from carbon-intensive steel production based on Blast-Furnaces towards a Direct Reduction and Electric Arc Furnace route, including the flexible incremental utilization of hydrogen. This concept is capable of reducing CO2 emissions up to 95% with respect to the entire steel production route.

The cooperation aims at jointly applying for public funding of the SALCOS® project.

In this context, Tenova will provide the ENERGIRON-ZR-direct reduction technology, the innovative HYL Direct Reduction Technology with integrated CO2 absorption system, jointly developed by Tenova and Danieli.

“Over the last years, Tenova has been heavily investing to develop technologies able to significantly reduce energy consumption and the environmental footprint of steel production. Hydrogen plays a pivotal role in this revolution, and the SALCOS® concept could represent an important milestone in our industry”, said Paolo Argenta, Tenova Executive Vice-President Upstream. “We are currently involved in a further study, GrInHy2.0, with Salzgitter AG and Sunfire GmbH, which has received the support of Hydrogen Europe and the European Commission. This should lead to another step toward the first full-scale initiative to move from coal to hydrogen in the steel production.”

Ulrich Grethe, member of Salzgitter AG’s Group Management Board: “The agreement with Tenova is another important step in the implementation of the SALCOS® project. With this, we affirm our offer to politics and society to realize a low CO2 steel production in the near future. Thus, SALCOS® is securing the future viability of the Salzgitter steel location and the jobs here.”