Swedish steelmaker SSAB has signed a preliminary agreement with German defence manufacturer Rheinmetall to supply decarbonised steel.
The deal makes Rheinmetall the first defence producer to use decarbonised steel in its manufacturing.
The timing of the first shipments has not been set, but implementation planning is under way, SSAB told Argus. "We can already deliver SSAB Zero, so it is now a question of us planning for the implementation," SSAB head of sustainability Thomas Hornfeldt said. "The agreement entered with Rheinmetall is a strategic agreement and thus longer term," he added.
Rheinmetall will initially receive SSAB Zero steel, which is a scrap-based steel produced using fossil fuel-free electricity, SSAB said. Deliveries will ramp up over time and later include material based on SSAB's HYBRIT process, which uses hydrogen-reduced sponge iron.
SSAB received a €128mn ($139mn) grant from the European Commission in 2024 to support its transition from coal-based steel production at its Lulea site to what the commission described as a nearly zero-emission system. The company plans to install an electric arc furnace (EAF) using hydrogen-based direct reduced iron.
In 2025, SSAB postponed the transformation by a year because of delays in securing sufficient electricity supply, but said in April that it will still proceed with installing the EAF to replace the site's sole blast furnace. The unit had been expected to start up in 2028 and reach full capacity in 2029.
Another Swedish low-carbon steelmaker, Stegra, is also progressing commercial agreements, having pre-sold just over half of its planned 2.5mn t/yr output ahead of first deliveries in 2027. The company has signed multi-year deals with customers including German firm Thyssenkrupp Materials Processing Europe, Italy's Marcegaglia and several German manufacturers.
