Published by:Julia Bolotova<>
19 May 2025 @ 10:00 UTC

ArcelorMittal has reconfirmed its decarbonization plan for its French assets after several months of uncertainty, but other green investments in Europe remain on hold, the company said on Thursday May 15.

The steelmaker intends to invest about €1.2 billion ($1.27 billion) in a first electric furnace at its Dunkirk site, it said.
ArcelorMittal is confident that the European Commission will soon be able to put in place effective trade defence and carbon border adjustment mechanisms, it said.
In total, the company intends to invest €2 billion in its French assets. As well as the €1.2 billion transformation investment for Dunkirk, there will be an additional €254 million investment for the site to overhaul the iron ore sintering line on blast furnace (BF) No4 and at one of the steel mill’s converters.
Another €53 million will be invested in Fos-sur-Mer, with €500 million put in a new electric steel production unit in Mardyck, which is set to be completed by the end of this year.
There are three BFs at the Dunkirk site with combined capacity of about 6.9 million tonnes per year of pig iron. Only BFs 3 and 4 have been operational recently, however.
BF2, with capacity for 1.4 million tpy of pig iron, has been idled since June 2022, Fastmarkets understands. The site can produce 4.6 million tpy of hot-rolled coil.
Meanwhile, the company’s investment plan for its Ghent steelworks in Belgium, and plans for its German assets remain on hold so far, Fastmarkets understands.
The release [on May 15] was only about France – and it talked about an ‘intention’, rather than a final investment decision. [There is] no update regarding other European decarbonization plans at this stage, a spokesperson for ArcelorMittal told Fastmarkets.
In the background The crisis unfolding in the European steel industry forced ArcelorMittal to put its decarbonization plans on hold in November 2024, Fastmarkets reported previously.
But in March 2025, the European Commission announced the European Action Plan for Steel and Metalsto support the struggling industry and this appeared to be a game changer for ArcelorMittal.
Under the plan, the Commission said it would tighten steel trade defence measures, improve regulations for the prevention of carbon leakage and provide affordable clean energy to support the steel industry,
The first steps have already been taken to tailor trade measures, with new tougher steel safeguard measures coming into force on April 1.
The revision of the steel safeguard measures, which came into force on 1 April 2025, is a first step in the right direction. The steel industry now needs a limit on imports to 15% of steel demand, as well as an effective carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) that can protect the sector, particularly from resource shuffling. These conditions will help restore fair competition to the European steel market, ArcelorMittal said.
Sources estimated imports’ share in domestic steel consumption in Europe was around 30% in 2024.
Apparent steel consumption in the EU amounted to 127 million tonnes in 2024, down by 2.3% from 130 million tonnes in 2023 and lower than during the 2020 pandemic year, when it stood at 129 million tonnes, data from the European steel association Eurofer shows.
In April, provisional anti-dumping duties were introduced against three countries, affecting about one third of the EU’s HRC imports, Fastmarkets reported.
The European Commission also plans to table legislative proposals amending the CBAM in the fourth quarter of 2025.