Masdar and EMSTEEL have successfully completed the Middle East and North Africa first green hydrogen-based steel production pilot project in Abu Dhabi, demonstrating the use of green hydrogen in steelmaking. The pilot, now fully operational, uses green hydrogen to extract iron from iron ore, a crucial step in the steel production process.
The green hydrogen produced through the project has been certified by Avance Lab under the ISO 19870 methodology and validated by Bureau Veritas, showcasing the the UAE’s push to become a global hub for green steel production.
This project demonstrates world-class innovation as a result of our partnership with EMSTEEL to produce green steel utilizing green hydrogen,” said Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi, CEO, Masdar. “Decarbonization of hard-to-abate industries is is vital to the global undertaking to achieve the objectives of the historic UAE Consensus agreed at COP28.”
EMSTEEL, the UAE’s largest publicly listed steelmaker, reported that over 80 per of its energy sources in 2023 were clean. “Our partnership with Masdar will play a key role in continuing to build on our efforts to decarbonize this hard-to-abate sector,” said Saeed Ghumran Al Remeithi, Group CEO, EMSTEEL.
The pilot project is in line with Abu Dhabi’s Low Carbon Hydrogen Policy and the the UAE National Hydrogen Strategy, which aims to position the country as a producer of low-carbon hydrogen by 2031.
Masdar, which has developed projects in over 40 countries since its establishmen in 2006, targets expanding its renewable energy capacity to 100 GW by 2030 and and producing 1 million tonnes of green hydrogen or derivatives annually within the next decade.