The company is in the middle of a process that, if successful, could revolutionize the entire steel industry and cause SSAB to leave the list of Sweden's worst climate criminals.
Around 10 percent of Sweden's total greenhouse gas emissions come from SSAB's facilities, due to steel production.
To make steel, coal is needed, in the form of coke, which gives off large amounts of carbon dioxide when the iron ore is heated inside the blast furnace.
But now that may change.
In August this year, a pilot plant was inaugurated in Luleå in the so-called HYBRIT project, where SSAB, together with Vattenfall and LKAB, will test using hydrogen instead of coal in one of the most important processes in steel production;
the reduction, where the iron ore is purified from oxygen and becomes small round, porous balls called "iron fungus".
- The advantage of using hydrogen is that water is formed instead of carbon dioxide when it binds oxygen, says Gunilla Hyllander, technical specialist at the Hybrit project.
Want to use locally produced electricity
The iron sponge should then be heated in an arc furnace together with scrap iron and turned into steel, it is thought.
SSAB expects to be able to start delivering its first fossil-free steel to the market as early as 2026, but there are still several major challenges left to solve.
No one has yet succeeded in producing steel on a large scale with the help of hydrogen, and huge amounts of electricity will be required in the process - about 15 terrawatt hours, which corresponds to ten percent of Sweden's electricity production.
SSAB expects that hydropower and expanded wind power will supply the electricity required.
- Right now we use more energy in the form of coal that we import from Australia.
We want to stop that, and use locally produced electricity instead, says Martin Pei.
According to the company's initial calculations, fossil-free steel can be between twenty and thirty percent more expensive than ordinary steel.
SSAB still expects to make a profit, as carbon dioxide emissions are expected to be more expensive and the production of green electricity, including wind power, cheaper.