Swedish green steel start-up H2 Green Steel is considering projects in North America through a joint feasibility study with Vale that would enable sustainable steel production.
The company said it would explore the potential to produce low-carbon steel value chain products like green hydrogen and hot briquetted iron in industrial centers in North America as well as Brazil.
H2 Green Steel yesterday closed on a €1.5bn equity private placement co-led by new investor Hy24, together with existing investors Altor, GIC and Just Climate. The transaction also includes new investors Andra AP - fonden and Temasek as well as a group of existing investors that continue to support H2 Green Steel with additional equity funding, including AMF, Cristina Stenbeck, Hitachi Energy, IMAS Foundation, Kinnevik, Schaeffler, Vargas and Wallenberg Investments holding company FAM.
The proceeds of that transaction will finance the construction and development of H2 Green Steel’s flagship large-scale green steel plant in Boden, Sweden. Groundworks have been ongoing on the site in Boden since summer 2022, and through this transaction H2 Green Steel takes another big leap towards start of operations end of 2025.
The plant will deliver steel with up to 95 percent less CO2 emissions compared to steel produced with traditional blast furnace technology. This is made possible by replacing coal in the production process with hydrogen, produced on-site with Europe’s largest electrolyzer, using electricity from renewable sources.
Since launch in 2021, H2 Green Steel has raised more than €1.8 billion of equity in three financing rounds. The company closed its series A equity round of €86 million in May 2021 and announced the close of its series B1 round of €260mn October 2022. On the debt side, H2 Green Steel announced in 2022 the structure for its debt financing of over €3.5 billion and renewed commitment letters in July 2023.
Morgan Stanley & Co. International plc acted as sole financial advisor to H2 Green Steel in the private placement.
In the green industrial hubs, Vale is expected to build and operate briquette plants, which will feed direct reduction reactors for the production of HBI and other metallics. The number of industrial hubs that will be built, their location and production capacity will be defined following feasibility studies to be developed jointly by the two companies.
In July, Vale and H2 Green Steel also signed an agreement to supply direct reduction pellets to the Boden plant. Vale expects to reach a production capacity of 100 million tons of agglomerates (briquettes and pellets) after 2030.
“We announced early on our journey that we want to explore other geographies where we can accelerate the decarbonization of the steel value chain. Both Brazil and parts of North America have great potential due to the access to both renewable energy sources, high quality iron ore, and political willingness to support decarbonization projects and it’s a great opportunity for us to explore our partnership with Vale beyond the pellet supply to our flagship plant in Boden,” said Kajsa Ryttberg-Wallgren, EVP growth and hydrogen business of H2 Green Steel, in a news release.
