John Cockerill Metals has created three new distinct business segments, with which the company aims to ‘address todays and tomorrow’s challenges…and support the steel value chain’s decarbonization efforts'.
The new segments consist of:
- Iron & Steelmaking
- Processing & Rolling
- Services & Energy Efficiency
While the Processing & Rolling segment is regrouping its historical downstream product portfolio, the newly created Iron & Steelmaking segment is focusing on John Cockerill Metals’ new upstream offering related to Volteron® (direct electrolysis), DRI (Direct Reduced Iron), EAF (Electric Arc Furnaces) technologies and the use of hydrogen in steelmaking.
The Services & Energy Efficiency segment will focus on downstream furnace electrification (reheating and processing line furnaces), as well as hydrogen combustion, and the optimization of plant operations, including energy audits and the modernization of steel production equipment and installations.
Next to offering technologies aiming at decarbonizing iron reduction and steel production via indirect electrification (DRI-EAF & H2-DRI-EAF), John Cockerill is also working on Volteron®, an iron reduction and steel processing route demonstrating the possibility of producing iron via direct electrolysis. This CO2 free steelmaking process, has been co-developed by the company's process experts, along with ArcelorMittal. The first Volteron® plant producing commercial steel through direct renewable electrification at an industrial scale is scheduled to be operational by 2027.