Adam emphasized that steel is not a bad material — on the contrary, it is by far the most widely used technical material. “The problem is not the absence of steel, but rather the amount of steel used locally. Many other materials, such as aluminum and nickel, emit significantly less CO2 compared to steel. We have a serious responsibility to solve this issue,” he said.
Adam stated that Europe, along with Japan and Korea, is a leader in producing low-cost and low-emission steel. “Over the past decades, we have optimized steel production. That’s why today we are highly advanced in terms of low CO2 emissions — both in terms of cost and CO2. On average, your teams perform much better than global standards,” he said.
"We have a major option to reduce CO2"
Stressing that Europe is a global leader in greening the industry, Adam said, “Yes, we have the most projects transitioning from laboratory scale to industrial production. We have a major opportunity to reduce CO2 emissions. But it also requires significant capital expenditure (CapEx) to invest in new facilities. And there are operational expenses (OpEx) as well.”
Touching on the need for green energy, Adam said, “In terms of energy demand alone, we will need around 165 terawatt-hours of energy by 2030. And the question is: we want to use green energy in steel production. Unfortunately, the CO2 standard per ton for the high-tech steel industry in Europe is still quite high,” he added.
Adam pointed out that European industry is facing a decline: “European industry is the only one globally showing a downward trend. While our economies are growing, the European steel industry is shrinking. We’ve seen job losses in the past. Layoffs have been announced, plants have been closed in Europe, and more are expected.”
Emphasizing the importance of the value chain, Adam said, “If you're in the steel industry, it only makes sense if you also have a processing industry along the value chain. Why should we manufacture cars, trucks, washing machines, and other steel-based products in Europe if we don’t have our own steel industry? In that case, we’d just import the cars and trucks. And I strongly believe that having a full value chain benefits both society and the economy.”
Four Key Areas
Adam emphasized that there are four key areas to secure the future of European industry: “Trade is absolutely necessary in the short term. The second issue is energy and scrap — a medium-term challenge. If trade and CBAM are not resolved, there's no point in discussing the future of the industry, even after the main lines of the European Steel and Metals Action Plan. These two topics are critical,” he said.
Addressing the issue of global overcapacity, Adam said, “We need a structural solution to tackle global overcapacity. We must reorganize our measures with a stronger and more comprehensive protection regime, and definitely strengthen our defense against unfair trade. We’re not asking for protection. We just want fair play — a level playing field in Europe,” he added.
Commenting on CBAM, Adam said, “We spoke with the European Commission members responsible for CBAM a year ago. We know CBAM has the potential to either sufficiently support European industry — or to destroy it. Now is the time for fine-tuning, and we’ve already had discussions with the Commission and its services in Brussels. There are three main points: we must end CO2 freeloading, carbon leakage, and regulatory loopholes.”
"We have extremely high energy costs"
Adam highlighted the high energy prices: “Compared to the global landscape, our energy costs are extremely high. Also, energy production is expensive and heavily burdened with additional costs, because we’re transforming our industry to run on electricity. Therefore, we need a long-term, low-cost, competitive energy strategy — or we’ll have to reorganize Europe,” he warned.
Speaking on the issue of scrap, Adam said, “The scrap business is still far from industrialized. And if we all switch to scrap usage in Europe, scrap will quickly become a scarce resource here. Yet we still export 19 million tons of scrap outside of Europe every year. So why don’t we use that scrap for our own steel production future and reallocate it?”
Adam stressed that new blast furnace projects outside Europe will harm European competitiveness: “There are dozens of new projects involving offline, low-cost, high CO2-emitting blast furnaces being built outside Europe. This will impact Europe’s competitiveness over the next five years,” he concluded.
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