DUISBURG (dpa-AFX) - The industrial gases company Air Liquide has completed a four-kilometer hydrogen pipeline in Duisburg. It connects the site of the Thyssenkrupp steel mill with Air Liquide's approximately 200-kilometer-long long-distance hydrogen pipeline network on the Rhine and Ruhr rivers. The pipeline will supply a large plant yet to be built in which low-carbon steel can be produced. "By linking our site to Air Liquide's hydrogen pipeline we are creating the conditions for climate-friendly steel production at thyssenkrupp Steel," Steel Executive Board Chairman Bernhard Osburg said on Thursday.

In the so-called direct reduction plant, climate-neutral hydrogen will replace the coke previously used in blast furnaces to extract oxygen from the iron ore. After a further processing step, pig iron is produced that can be further processed as before. The investment is estimated at more than two billion euros. Completion of the first plant is planned for 2026. In return thyssenkrupp plans to shut down one of its four conventionally operated blast furnaces in Duisburg.

Steel production produces very large quantities of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. According to earlier figures, Thyssenkrupp is responsible for around 2.5 percent of CO2 emissions nationwide, and in the Ruhr region for as much as around a quarter of carbon dioxide emissions./tob/DP/stw