ArcelorMittal Belgium is passionate about sustainability and circularity and is playing an absolute pioneering role in the industry when it comes to climate transition.
ArcelorMittal strives to produce steel in a socially responsible manner and considers the social impacts along the whole product chain. ArcelorMittal Belgium is fully engaged in implementing an action plan to reduce CO2 emissions by 35% by 2030 compared to 2018 and to become climate neutral by 2050. Within this framework, ArcelorMittal Belgium commissioned a plant to process waste wood into biocoal suitable for the blast furnace process, hence lowering the volume of fossil coal used. This project will reduce annual carbon emissions by 112,500 tons. The Torero plant will convert 88,000 tons of waste wood into 37,500 tons of biocoal each year.
The use of biocoal in the blast furnace process will result in biogas which will be transformed into ethanol by the Steelanol facility which can then be used as a building block to produce a variety of chemical products including transport fuels, paints, plastics, clothing and even cosmetic perfume, hence helping to support the decarbonization efforts of the chemical sector.
The Torero project is supported by European funding, where the project consortium consists of full value chain:
- Industry: ArcelorMittal
- Expert research organizations: Joanneum Research, University of Graz and Chalmers Technical University
- Developer of the carbonization process technology: Perpetual Next (formerly TorrCoal)
