Salzgitter AG and Ørsted have announced that they will work together in a strategic partnership in the future via a memorandum of understanding (MOU) which outlines the company’s joint approach.
Salzgitter AG and Ørsted aim to establish closed value chains in their business relationships. In addition to the supply of offshore wind power and the use of renewable hydrogen, the production of low-carbon steel and its use in the components for Ørsted’s offshore wind farms are included. There are also plans to recycle scrap from decommissioned wind turbines into the steel production process.
Salzgitter AG is a European steel and technology company and a pioneer in low-carbon steel production. Ørsted is a green energy company and the global market leader in developing, constructing, and operating offshore wind farms. Ørsted has just been ranked as the world’s most sustainable energy company on the Corporate Knights’ 2022 Global 100 index for the fourth year running. Both companies have ambitious strategies for decarbonising the industry, which will support Germany’s goal of climate neutrality by 2045.
Gunnar Groebler, chairman of the executive board of Salzgitter AG, said: “The drive-in society for climate neutrality is our incentive for the rapid further development of the company with a focus on circularity, the principle of low-carbon and resource-saving closed value chains. We will anchor this firmly in our partnerships. Together, we want to provide the necessary impetus for change and successfully drive it forward. The partnership with Ørsted is an important element in the formation of our partner network. Together with Ørsted, we are showing that circularity is becoming a reality on an industrial scale.”
Martin Neubert, chief commercial officer and deputy group CEO at Ørsted, said: “We have a target of making our own operations climate-neutral by 2025, thereby becoming the first major energy company to reach net-zero emissions. We want to achieve the same for our indirect carbon emissions by 2040. As a supplier of green power and as a large offtaker of steel, we consider the strategic partnership with Salzgitter AG a great opportunity to move a step closer to reaching this target. A circularity partnership like the one we are striving for will set the trend for the decarbonisation of the German industry, and offshore wind power is one of the most important levers to achieve this.”
