Romania Eyes EU Funding for Power Plants
Steel producer Liberty Galati has forged a green deal with Romgaz to build greenfield power plants in the Romania that run on gas or renewable energy, the state gas enterprise said June 11.
Liberty Galati is part of the UK-based GFG Alliance empire, which is planning to use electric arc furnaces as well as conventional forms of heat in its industrial processes, including upcycling scrap metal.
Under their memorandum of understanding to form a joint venture, the two companies agreed to work together on investment projects to be financed from their own capital as well as from external sources including the European Union's Green Deal and financing schemes in Romania.
The implementation period of such investment projects will take about four years, during which time the two companies will "co-operate and join efforts for such projects to become a reality and a model of good practice in the Romanian economy," Romgaz said.
Romgaz CEO Adrian Volintiru said the partnership was "an example for Romania. We thus pursue Romgaz priorities included in the long-term development strategy under which we are striving to diversify the channels of enhanced gas use. It is an important investment at national level and represents a first step towards putting Romania on the EU map of green steel production. Such investments lead to the horizontal development of many economic sectors and, implicitly, motivation for Romgaz to increase its exploration-production programmes."
GFG Alliance CEO Sanjeev Gupta said the agreement signed with Romgaz would allow his company to deliver competitive energy on a long term basis for low-emission steel production in Galati. "I am very confident that the project will succeed and put Galati on the map, not only in Europe but also at global level, as a low-emission steel production unit, sustainable, for a new era built for the generations to come," he said.
GFG Alliance announced plans June 10 to turn its Whyalla plant in Australia into "a world-leading, carbon-neutral steel producer, utilising South Australia’s abundant magnetite resources and natural gas, transitioning in time to green hydrogen produced from renewable energy. It said it would be its first primary steel plant to be transformed to Greensteel, helping fulfil its ambition to become the world’s largest carbon-neutral steel producer by 2030. It did not mention the Romania agreement.