Liberty Steel Group’s French subsidiary, Liberty France, announced the SNCF Réseau-approved deployment of Liberty’s “GREENSTEEL” branded rails on the French rail network.
Following Liberty’s recent acquisition and merger of Ascoval with Hayange, the new structure sees ferrous scrap melted into “GREENSTEEL” billets and blooms at the 600,000mt per year Ascoval electric arc furnace and rerolled into 300,000mt of rail per year in Hayange, according to a company statement on Dec 10.
The company invested €17mn on the modifications transforming the steelmaking equipment at Ascoval to produce a new range of cross-sections, including blooms and billets, suitable for rolling into rails and other steel products.
According to Liberty, this new production process reduces CO2 emissions by 90pc compared with traditional processes. Production of “GREENSTEEL” rails emits 180kg of CO2 per tonne of steel compared to 1.8mt of CO2 per tonne of steel using conventional blast furnaces.
The company noted that Ascoval is now running at a higher capacity, with “strong prospects of adding more jobs in early 2021” as the plant expands its production, while the wider GFG Alliance retains its ambition to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030.