Environment and Energy Minister Olaf Lies visits Salzgitter AG to discuss strategies for decarbonization and major investment

• Focus on decarbonizing steel production – with the aid of hydrogen and electricity from renewable sources
• SALCOS – the efficient route to low-CO2 steelmaking
• Presentation of a major investment in a third hot-dip galvanizing line

Olaf Lies, Minister for the Environment, Energy, Construction and Climate Protection in the State of Lower Saxony, has visited Salzgitter AG subsidiary Salzgitter Flachstahl GmbH as part of his “Climate Tour”. He was accompanied by Matthias Wunderling-Weilbier, State Commissioner for the region, and members of the State Parliament of Lower Saxony Susanne Schütz (FDP) and Christoph Plett (CDU). They met with Salzgitter AG Finance Director Burkhard Becker and several other senior Group managers.
 
The main purpose of the visit was to discuss the innovative “Salzgitter Low-CO2 Steelmaking” project SALCOS, which is pioneering the technical concept for low-CO2 steel production. This new concept will facilitate a reduction in CO2 emissions by up to 95% by the year 2050. SALCOS is based on components that have already been tried and tested on an industrial scale. Given the necessary political and economic conditions, the first step in implementing the concept is implementable by 2025. The project partners include among others the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and Italian company Tenova.
 
In the course of the following tour of the plant which included a visit to a blast furnace, the visitors were given a presentation of the “No. 3 Hot-dip Galvanizing Line (FV3)” project. This will be one of the largest individual investments in the past ten years and an essential element in the Salzgitter Group strategy, reinforcing the Group’s market position as a manufacturer of premium products for customers in the automobile industry. FV3 will safeguard the future of Salzgitter as a center of steelmaking. With an annual capacity of 500,000 tonnes, the new plant will supplement the two already existing hot-dip lines at SZFG. It is expected to begin operation in 2022.
 
Minister Olaf Lies: “Climate protection in Germany must offer opportunities and means both of conserving resources and of supporting economic development. SALCOS is an outstanding example, in that it represents the right way to avoid CO2 emissions – economically and ecologically. As the State government we are pleased to support this technical concept pioneered by Salzgitter here in Lower Saxony, in order to enable SALCOS to be implemented with speed and safeguard this center of steelmaking and the jobs go with it.”
 
Burkhard Becker, Finance Director of Salzgitter AG: “With SALCOS we are making a specific offer both to the political community and to society which describes in detail the route to reduced-CO2 steel production. The requisite economic conditions and energy regulations must now be put in place to allow us to begin implementing this project in the near term. “