MUSCAT, JUNE 23
High-level executives of Vulcan Green Steel, a first-of-its-kind green-hydrogen ready steel complex under construction at Duqm Special Economic Zone, say the landmark project has garnered provisional offtake commitments exceeding its capacity of 6 million tonnes per annum (MTPA).
The announcement bolsters the Sultanate of Oman’s bid to position itself as a regional hub for investments in hard-to-abate industries, notably steel, aluminium and cement, powered by zero-carbon green hydrogen as a fuel source.
As many as eight international consortiums have signed project agreements with the Omani government committing to produce in excess of 1 million tonnes of green hydrogen per annum – a proportion of which is proposed to be utilized domestically to power these export-oriented, hard-to-abate industries.
“Our greenfield steel complex in Duqm (GCC) continues its progress and will have 6 MTPA green steel capacity benefitting from Oman’s exceptional solar and wind resources,” said Arnaud Guerendel, Vice President – Vulcan Green Steel.
“Welcomed in Europe, this exceptional and ambitious project has generated about 6.2 MTPA as Memorandum of Understanding with leaders of different steel user segments within the last fiscal year,” the Turin (Italy) based executive, who oversees Vulcan’s European operations, added in a recent post.
The Duqm green steel project, backed by Indian power and steel conglomerate Jindal Group, is being developed with an investment of around $3 billion. The project will initially be powered by natural gas but later transition to green hydrogen to produce low carbon steel suited for the automobile, wind turbine and consumer durable goods manufacturing industries in Europe and Japan.
Among the prestigious European players that have committed to offtaking low-carbon steel from Oman is Volkswagen AG. The German automaker announced recently that it has signed an MoU with Vulcan Green Steel covering the offtake of around 300,000 tonnes per annum of steel for its European operations.
Just earlier, Czech-based Vitkovice Steel revealed that it had signed an agreement to procure around 1 million tonnes of low-carbon steel from the Duqm plant to supply the European market with “quality sheets, sheet plates and billets from ecological steel”.
First production of green steel from the Duqm plant is slated during 2027.
Furthermore, to capitalize on the anticipated availability of green hydrogen by around 2030, the Port of Duqm, along with the Public Authority for Special Economic Zones and Free Zones (OPAZ), have earmarked prime land for investments that are expected to materialize in and around the SEZ.
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