CO2 OFFSETS AND HOT STEEL
[BIZ: Liège, December 6] A former CEO of the company, Guy Dollé, in an article by Philippe Lawson in La Libra Belgique, says that the group feels that the Walloon government doesn’t have much room for maneuver. It’s difficult to see how the region will get out of this. They can’t buy the quotas and put them at the disposition of ArcelorMittal: that would be against the European law of state aid. The solution would be to look at national and European levels and ArcelorMittal could perhaps purchase them — but at what price? The paradox of the European directive relating to CO2 offsets makes it impossible to work in Europe and preserve one’s virtue by buying the quotas, so that there would be less CO2 produced in Europe than in the East or Asia. Sources close to Lakshmi Mittal said that he believes in re-launching the hot-rolled steel in Liège, but it is a question of reaching an agreement with the various parties. According to the papers and information, the Walloon region denies having made any promise to Mittal and the minister responsible is not prepared to argue about it. It is a question of finding an equitable solution.
Lakshmi Mittal, the boss of ArcelorMittal, the giant steel company, is making it clear that unless he gets the CO2 offset quotas promised, there will be no question of restarting the number six blast furnace (HF6) in Seraing. The region pressured the group to restart the furnace and the company is prepared to do this, but they must get the CO2 offsets. What they need is 13 million quota tons of CO2 for the 2010-2012 period to run the two blast furnaces. If they had to buy these offsets, this would mean more than EUR 260m and this would make Liège steel less competitive — it costs EUR 50m more, and is less competitive than the other sites. The Walloon government has guaranteed him around 1.7 million tons of offsets for the 2008-2009 period for the HF6, but it’s the three following years, 2010-2012, that present a problem, and this uncertainty is causing the problems.
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