Tenaris, Edison and Snam join together in a project to trial steelmaking with green hydrogen in the Dalmine mill in Italy

The project, which is part of a broader initiative known as “Dalmine Zero Emissions”, would launch the first industrial-scale application of hydrogen in Italy to decarbonize the steel sector

Dalmine (BG), Milan, January 11, 2021 - Tenaris, Edison and Snam have signed a letter of intent to launch a project aimed at decarbonizing Tenaris’s seamless pipe mill in Dalmine through the introduction of green hydrogen in some production processes.

Tenaris, Edison and Snam will collaborate to identify and implement the most suitable solutions for the production, distribution and use of green hydrogen at the Tenaris mill, contributing their skills to invest in the best available technologies. The project looks to generate hydrogen and oxygen through an approximate 20 MW electrolyzer that will be installed at the Dalmine plant and to adapt the steelmaking process to use green hydrogen instead of natural gas. The initiative may also include the construction of a storage site for the accumulation of high-pressure hydrogen and the use of oxygen, locally produced through electrolysis, within the melting process. The development of the project would significantly reduce CO2 emissions related to electric arc furnace steel.

After the initial test, the three companies will evaluate whether to expand the collaboration to other stages of the production process therefore extending the use of hydrogen. The project is part of the broader “Dalmine Zero Emissions” initiative, launched by Tenaris together with Tenova and Techint Engineering & Construction, to integrate green hydrogen in steelmaking from the electric arc furnace steel and in the downstream processing of the Dalmine mill. This would be the first application of green hydrogen on an industrial scale in Italy’s steel sector.

Michele Della Briotta, President of Tenaris Europe and CEO of TenarisDalmine, said, “The ‘Dalmine Zero Emissions’ project is our latest initiative launched by Tenaris in Italy to improve our environmental footprint, after the investments and projects for the protection of air quality, for energy efficiency, for the reduction of raw materials consumption, for the increase of the content of recycled material in our products and for the enhancement and reuse of our by-products. Through the ‘Dalmine Zero Emissions’ project’, together with qualified partners, we are starting the energy transition of the Dalmine plant, placing ourselves at the forefront of sustainability in the steel sector.”

Nicola Monti, CEO of Edison, said, “With this agreement, Edison launches a path to support the decarbonization of industrial sectors that are key to the national economy, thus contributing to the achievement of the energy transition objectives set at a national level in the PNIEC and at a European level in the Green Deal. The renewable energy produced by our plants and the technological solutions available to us can concretely contribute to the development of a new and important national value chain, which in the coming decades will accompany the evolution of the economic and production system towards climate neutrality.”

Marco Alverà, CEO of Snam, said, “Green hydrogen can represent the ideal solution to decarbonize some key industrial sectors, in particular to produce zero-emission steel in the long term. Today’s agreement, which features three companies active along the entire value chain, is a first step to achieving this important goal. Thanks to its technologies and infrastructure, Snam acts as one of the enablers of the hydrogen supply chain, to contribute to the fight against climate change and the creation of new development opportunities, in line with national and European strategies.”

The implementation of the project will be governed by separate agreements negotiated between the parties in compliance with the legal and regulatory framework.