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The major heavy industry in Ukraine is metal production, especially the iron and steel sector. Ukraine is the world’s third-largest exporter of iron and steel and its eighth-largest producer. The second-largest sector of the Ukrainian economy is still iron and steel production.
The Ukraine Steel market accounted for $XX Billion in 2023 and is anticipated to reach $XX Billion by 2030, registering a CAGR of XX% from 2024 to 2030.
Steel production in Ukraine is included in “green” supply chains. Ukraine has a great opportunity of becoming a global supplier of DRI goods and carbon-free steel. Steel plants’ operations have had to adapt significantly during the past two months, both domestically and internationally.
Steelmakers’ global plans to become carbon neutral, however, have not changed. In order to do this, businesses launch several R&D and pilot projects utilising new technology and present their findings at international conferences.
EU facilities view the creation of DRI based on “green” hydrogen as the primary decarbonization method. Since CO2 is still emitted during the production process and is used in other industries, carbon capture and use is viewed as a stopgap measure that does not completely address the issue.
Additionally, scrap won’t be the sole raw material available for electric arc furnaces in the long run. The scrap contains impurities of other metals, particularly copper, and their concentration rises with each remelting. The number of steel grades that can be smelted from scrap is constrained by the large amount of impurities.
By combining scrap with direct iron reduction products, this issue can be resolved (DRI). Therefore, without iron ore-derived products, they might not be able to do electric arc smelting in the future.
There are prospects for Ukraine to develop DR pellets. Background information is required to decarbonize Ukrainian steel manufacturing by the use of DRI made with “green” hydrogen. Currently, the creation of “green” hydrogen is more of an experimental technology that isn’t quite ready for commercial application.
Natural gas is used to manufacture the majority of DRI.There are many complicated concerns that must be resolved before DRI manufacturing can begin in Ukraine, including the expansion of domestic natural gas production (to launch DRI production in the short term).
With access to European finance sources, these issues will be simpler to resolve in the context of Ukraine’s integration into Europe.
Ukraine has a great opportunity of becoming a global supplier of DRI goods and carbon-free steel. The businesses’ efforts and the economic policies of the Ukrainian and European state institutions will determine whether or not these opportunities are realised.
