ArcelorMittal has installed a green hydrogen combustion system at its Olaberria plant in Spain, marking a significant shift in how the company powers its rolling mill operations. Rolling mills require extremely high temperatures to heat steel blooms, billets or slabs before they are shaped into finished products. The plant’s natural-gas-fired reheating furnaces have now been replaced with units combusting 100% green hydrogen oxyfuel.

The new system was designed, manufactured and installed by Sarralle in collaboration with Nippon Gases, demonstrating growing industrial interest in hydrogen as a decarbonisation pathway for steelmaking.

Hydrogen’s role in steelmaking 

Hydrogen is increasingly promoted as a key technology for low-carbon steel production, especially as a reductant in direct reduced iron (DRI) to enable green virgin iron. However, ArcelorMittal’s deployment of hydrogen at Olaberria comes shortly after the company declined €1.3bn in public subsidies to replace two German blast furnaces with hydrogen-based DRI systems, citing high energy costs in Germany.

At the same time, the CEO of ArcelorMittal’s Belgian operations told the Financial Times that hydrogen would take “many more years to become commercially viable in Europe”. When asked why hydrogen was feasible for rolling at Olaberria but not for German DRI, the company did not respond.

According to a 2007 International Energy Agency report, hot rolling is the third most energy-intensive process at an integrated steelwork, requiring up to 2.4 GJ per tonne. By comparison, blast furnace ironmaking consumes up to 14 GJ per tonne, and total steelmaking energy use now exceeds 21 GJ per tonne. Excluding ironmaking, Sarralle notes that reheating furnaces account for up to 80% of a steel plant’s fuel consumption.

Mark Allan, group leader for green metals research at the UK’s Materials Processing Institute, said hydrogen combustion for steel rolling is a “legitimate decarbonisation option and an appropriate use of the gas”. He added that electrical heating “can’t quite meet all the requirements for rapid and even heat transfer” at such high temperatures.

Source:

https://fuelcellsworks.com/2025/11/17/clean-energy/arcelormittal-adopts-green-hydrogen-combustion-at-spanish-rolling-mill-after-dropping-german-dri-plan