Germany looks to hydrogen

German steel companies thyssenkrupp Steel and HKM will explore hydrogen import opportunities via the Port of Rotterdam as well as a possible pipeline corridor from the companies’ steel sites in Duisburg.

The partnership may serve as a framework for additional initiatives and aims at supporting existing initiatives and projects the partners are involved in.

Future needs

In future, the companies said they are going to require large and increasing quantities of hydrogen to produce steel without coal in the future.

For decades, both companies have been importing coal, iron ore and other raw materials via their own terminal in Rotterdam, using inland barges as well as rail to transport it to their blast furnaces in Duisburg.

The Port of Rotterdam of course is already investigating the import of hydrogen from a large number of countries and regions all over the world.

Rotterdam is also setting up a carbon transport and storage system, Porthos, which is also being considered as a CO2 storage site for the production of blue hydrogen by the “H2morrow steel” project, which includes thyssenkrupp Steel as a partner.

Going forward, the three partners agree that new, cross-border infrastructure is required to support the energy transition, especially additional pipeline structure.

It’s hoped that this cooperation between Rotterdam as Europe’s largest port and Duisburg as Europe’s largest steel site will have a signaling effect to establish supply chains for the energy transition building an important sustainable European industry and logistics cluster.