Tata Steel is in discussion with the Dutch government to chalk out a plan for its transition project in the Netherlands as the company looks to meet relevant guidelines amid the challenges it faces due to tightened emission norms, the company's Chairman N Chandrasekaran said on Thursday.
Tata Steel owns a steel manufacturing plant at IJmuiden in the Netherlands with an annual installed capacity of around 7 million tonne. It has adopted a transformation programme to maximise production efficiencies, lower fixed costs and optimise product mix and margins at the facility, by installing low-carbon emitting steel processes.
In the Netherlands, the operating environment has become challenging with certain environmental regulations now exceeding European Union standards, Chandrasekaran said addressing the company's 119th Annual General Meeting (AGM).
He said emission norms have tightened to levels where, for some of Tata Steel Nederland's legacy assets, viable solutions are not currently feasible within regulatory accepted timelines.
The company is actively engaging with the Dutch Government and relevant stakeholders to develop a pathway for Tata Steel Nederland (TSN) which is environmentally compliant, financially affordable and viable over the long term, he said.
During the financial year ended March 31, TSN also acquired Vattenfall's co-generation power plants to strengthen its energy security and support transition objectives.
As per the company document, the planned transformation in the Netherlands is expected to deliver reductions of approximately 5.4 million tonne per year compared to a baseline of 12.6 million tonne CO₂ at 7.23 MTPA of steel production.
As part of its decarbonisation plan, Tata Steel is also setting up the UK's largest low-carbon EAF (electric arc furnace) project of 3.2 million tonne capacity at Port Talbot with 1.25 billion pounds of investment to replace its now-shut blast furnace plant.
