Norway’s Blastr Green Steel is
planning a €4 billion ($4.3 billion) investment to construct a low-carbon steel
factory in Finland in what could be one of the largest industrial projects to
take place in the Nordic country.
Blastr signed a letter of intent with Fortum
Oyj on the planned location, an industrial area in Inkoo on the
south coast of the country, according to a statement by
Business Finland on Tuesday. The facility will include integrated hydrogen
production and employ as many as 1,200 staff when operational.
Steel-making is one of the most polluting industries in the world, with huge
blast furnaces heating iron ore with coking coal. A cleaner way is to use
hydrogen produced with renewable energy. A number of companies, including
Sweden’s SSAB
AB and Finland’s Outokumpu
Oyj, are exploring green-steel technologies, though it’s not yet
produced at an industrial scale.