Posted Apr 6, 2023, 7:24 AMUpdated on Apr 6, 2023, 5:45 PM
The contrast is striking. On one side of the still snow-covered road, a huge blast furnace dominates the site with its imposing rusty silhouette, from which thick gray smoke escapes. On the other, a small brand new gray building, which would pass almost unnoticed without the giant letters “HYBRIT” adorning one of its facades.
Yet it is there, in the far north of Sweden, that the future of the world steel industry is partly at stake. Here in Lulea, a few kilometers from the Arctic Circle, the steelmaker SSAB has been producing for almost two years, with its partners LKAB and Vattenfall, the very first “iron sponges” in the world – with which it then manufactures steel almost 100 % of carbon.
