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ENVIRONMENT

Gothenburg kicks off green bond sale

Gothenburg in western Sweden became the first city in Scandinavia to issue green bonds to fund public investment when it sold off 500 million kronor worth of debt on Friday.

Published: 28 September 2013 13:26 CEST
Gothenburg kicks off green bond sale

“In 30 minutes we got bids for €1.25 billion, says Magnus Borelius, finance director for the City of Gothenburg, told the local Göteborgs Posten (GP) daily.

The money that the municipality pulls in through the the bonds is earmarked for environmental projects. The funds generated on Friday will be used for a water treatment plant.

City of Gothenburg is the first public body in the Nordic region to issue green bonds in accordance with the World Bank’s rules. The World Bank is behind the project to issue green bond and is responsible for the definition.

IN PICTURES: See stunning pictures of Gothenburg after sunset

Magnus Borelius underlined that the move is not a means to simply increase the debt carried by the city.

“This is not a question of increasing debt levels in the city, it is about swapping money for green money.”

The green bonds have been described by the municipal council chairwoman Anneli Hultén as an important step in the city’s environmental work.

“In practice it means that the city can make use of its strong standing in the finance markets to move towards a more environmentally-friendly world,” she said to GP.

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ENVIRONMENT

Sweden’s SSAB to build €4.5bn green steel plant in Luleå 

The Swedish steel giant SSAB has announced plans to build a new steel plant in Luleå for 52 billion kronor (€4.5 billion), with the new plant expected to produce 2.5 million tons of steel a year from 2028.

Published: 2 April 2024 13:44 CEST
Sweden's SSAB to build €4.5bn green steel plant in Luleå 

“The transformation of Luleå is a major step on our journey to fossil-free steel production,” the company’s chief executive, Martin Lindqvist, said in a press release. “We will remove seven percent of Sweden’s carbon dioxide emissions, strengthen our competitiveness and secure jobs with the most cost-effective and sustainable sheet metal production in Europe.”

The new mini-mill, which is expected to start production at the end of 2028 and to hit full capacity in 2029, will include two electric arc furnaces, advanced secondary metallurgy, a direct strip rolling mill to produce SSABs specialty products, and a cold rolling complex to develop premium products for the transport industry.

It will be fed partly from hydrogen reduced iron ore produced at the HYBRIT joint venture in Gälliväre and partly with scrap steel. The company hopes to receive its environemntal permits by the end of 2024.

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The announcement comes just one week after SSAB revealed that it was seeking $500m in funding from the US government to develop a second HYBRIT manufacturing facility, using green hydrogen instead of fossil fuels to produce direct reduced iron and steel.

The company said it also hoped to expand capacity at SSAB’s steel mill in Montpelier, Iowa. 

The two new investment announcements strengthen the company’s claim to be the global pioneer in fossil-free steel.

It produced the world’s first sponge iron made with hydrogen instead of coke at its Hybrit pilot plant in Luleå in 2021. Gälliväre was chosen that same year as the site for the world’s first industrial scale plant using the technology. 

In 2023, SSAB announced it would transform its steel mill in Oxelösund to fossil-free production.

The company’s Raahe mill in Finland, which currently has new most advanced equipment, will be the last of the company’s big plants to shift away from blast furnaces. 

The steel industry currently produces 7 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, and shifting to hydrogen reduced steel and closing blast furnaces will reduce Sweden’s carbon emissions by 10 per cent and Finland’s by 7 per cent.

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