04/10/2021
“60% of European steel is produced with the integrated cycle, as in the Taranto plant of Acciaierie d’Italia. The signature of the memorandum between the major Italian steelmaker, Paul Wurth and Fincantieri is the right occasion for creating a true showcase of most advanced technologies aimed at reducing emissions of production sites, not just in the field of the steel”.
In this video story, the CEO of Paul Wurth Italy, Thomas Hansmann, comments contents and objectives of the deal announced on April 13, 2021, that gathers the three companies into a common overhaul project of the existing integral cycle of the Taranto plants, using ecologically compatible technologies.
“The reason for the signature of the Memorandum” Hansmann points out, “is the will of developing, together with Acciaierie d'Italia, a decarbonization roadmap for the Italian steel industry in the shortest possibile time. We at Paul Wurth are ready to provide the needed technology, while a partner like Fincantieri assures the possibility of implementing and build immediately the plants needed to get the process started”.
Paul Wurth ha an in-depth knowledge of the plants of the Taranto steel mill: “our company inherited a great Italian technological tradition, that from Italimpianti, that for more than forty years had a prime role in the industrial development of the Country”. Thanks to this experience, Paul Wurth owns the needed competences to “design and implement at the soonest the fittest solutions for Acciaierie d’Italia. In detail, our last technologies can be used to minimize Co2 emissions in two fundamental segments of the production cycle at Taranto: coke oven plants and blast furnaces”.
The cooperation between Paul Wurth and Acciaierie d’Italia will develop along two directions: “on one side, reach the highest possible energetic efficiency of the existing plants, and, on the other side, reduce the carbon and coke usage in the blast furnaces. The last one is a field of development very promising for the reusage of metallurgic gases producing in the steel works to feed existing plants avoiding carbon”.
Hydrogen is the future of steel production, “but is a journey that has just begun: we at Paul Wurth take part with high interest to discussions on the evolution of the steel industry, as we believe that hydrogen will become the fuel for steel production. We are now working to the creation of conditions that would make possible the transition with the gas as a first step and the final goal to increase year after year the amount of usable hydrogen. Another very interesting technology is the sponge iron, that is to become an alternative to the blast furnace when hydrogen will be available at lower costs and sufficient quantity. But we are talking about the future”.
Most of European steel, Thomas Hansmann goes on, is produced following the same processes existing at the Taranto plant: “Our agreement will allow to make the biggest steel plant of Europe also a reference point at international level, developing solutions that can be developed in other countries too”.
The need to find out a solution that allows to maintain steel production will a low environmental impact “it is not just an Italian problem, but a European one: how to marry the needs of the industry with those of the ecologic transition? From this standpoint, I believe it is normal that three great companies of continental standing, such as Acciaierie d’Italia, Paul Wurth – born in Luxemburg – and hour German parent company, SMS Group, made an alliance: great manufacturing traditions that join forces to assure a new future to the steel industry in Europe”.
