ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel announces 'green steel' certification, says customers to benefit

AM/NS noted that the firm has been ready to make the switch to green steel for nearly a decade

• AM/NS India earns first green steel certification under new government rules.
• Hot rolled coils got four stars, cold rolled products received three-star rating
• Firm boosts green steelmaking with natural gas DRI and increased scrap usage

Did our AI summary help?

Metals firm ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India (AM/NS) has announced that some of its steel products, namely hot rolled coils and sheets, as well as cold-rolled coils and sheets, have received "green steel" certifications from the National Institute of Secondary Steel Technology (NISST), the union Ministry of Steel's nodal agency for certification under its new green steel taxonomy.

AM/NS' chief executive officer Dilip Oommen said that while the hot rolled coil and sheets received a four-star rating, the cold rolled products received a three-star rating under the government's taxonomy. His firm is the first to receive the certifications under the new framework, Oommen said.

"India is the first country to come up with a taxonomy for green steel production...We have seen that steelmakers in places like North America and Europe are often non-competitive due to green steel measures. However, we have achieved it without losing our competitive edge or increasing our cost of production," Oommen said, at a press briefing.

The company added that the firm's customers, such as from the auto sector, have shown "excitement" for the new products, with greener steel potentially helping them maintain global competitiveness in the face of carbon-related tariffs.

The government finalised the taxonomy in December 2024. Under the framework, green steel is defined as that which has less than 2.2 tonne of carbon dioxide emissions per tonne of finished steel. Ratings can be sought from three to five stars, depending on the emissions per tonne, with five stars being the greenest steel.

Under its National Mission for Green Steel, the government has targeted net zero carbon emissions by the steel industry by 2070, and has also pledged to procure significant green steel for public infrastructure projects, in order to provide an incentive for the sector to go green.

AM/NS' management said that the firm has a "natural edge" in green steelmaking, having made investments in the space for over a decade. More than two-thirds of the firm's production capacity is based on natural gas-powered direct reduced iron (DRI) method, considered as a lower-emission steelmaking process. The firm has started the process of increasing the share of green power in its energy consumption matrix, funding a hybrid renewable power plant in Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh.

The firm's chief sustainability officer, Arvind Bodhankar, added that the company is also increasing its usage of scrap in steelmaking. However, he also noted that both the quantity of steel scrap, as well as its quality, remains a challenge.

"We are setting up our own scrap processing centre. One was already commissioned last year in Khopoli. Another three are in the pipeline. Very soon, we will have our scrap collection and processing centre up and running, so that we can get more and more scrap available for our process," Bodhankar added.