Steelmakers Severstal, Evraz team up with Gazprom's subsidiary to tackle CO2

Russian mining and steel companies Severstal and Evraz said June 3 they have signed an agreement with Gazprom Neft, a subsidiary of Russia's Gazprom, with regards to cooperation in developing technologies to produce, transport, store, and use hydrogen and reduce carbon dioxide, or CO2, emissions.

Gazprom Neft said it wants to team up with the steelmakers to develop green industrial technologies based on its competences in handling CO2. As part of the agreement, the oil company will be sharing separately with Severstal and Evraz its best practices in CO2 disposal.

Since 2015, Serbia's NIS -- a joint venture of Gazprom Neft and the Republic of Serbia -- has implemented a project on CO2 removal from natural gas at a number of deposits pumping extracted CO2 back into the reservoirs at a depth of over 2,500 metres.

"We routinely dispose of CO2 by pumping it back into oil and gas reservoirs as part of our operations; we have accumulated experience in such projects and are ready to share it with our partners and the market at large," said Vadim Yakovlev, deputy chairman of Gazprom Neft's management board.

He added that pumping CO2 back into reservoirs is seen as indispensable for delivering on the global CO2 emissions reduction targets.

Evraz said it will assess whether it can use this technology of CO2 capture and subsurface disposal at its steelmaking and mining operations, and will assess the potential of transferring its production facilities from hydrocarbons to methane-hydrogen fuels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Emissions

Evraz targets emissions from steelmaking operations in Russia and North America of 1.6 mt of CO2 equivalent per ton of steel by 2030, about 20% down from 1.97 mt in 2019-20.

"We support the global low-carbon agenda, while looking for opportunities to modernise our facilities in a way that would contribute to climate stability and cleaner environment in the communities where we operate," said Aleksey Ivanov, senior vice president for commerce and business development at Evraz.

Severstal CEO Alexander Shevelev said the company does not see only challenges and risks with regards to the trend necessitating decarbonisation that is here to stay for decades, but also opportunities.

"The next ten years will see technologies and projects for CO2 capture and disposal and the production of hydrogen develop fast in Russia and the world, which opens up potential for growth and even additional income (on this future commodity market)," said Shevelev.

Severstal said it ranks 11th among the world's steel companies with the lowest greenhouse gas emissions, finding itself in the 25% of the best steelmakers worldwide, according to Worldsteel.

Last year, Severstal committed to the goal of reducing 3% CO2 emissions by 2023 from the 2020 base, and this year it has set up a team dedicated to working with hydrogen and innovative decarbonization projects.