Senior Mandated Lead Arranger in the financing to H2 Green Steel

H2 Green Steel was founded in 2020 with the purpose to accelerate the decarbonization of the hard-to-abate industries, starting with steel. The company is set to become the first industrial-scale end-to-end green steel producer.

The project represents an important landmark in the evolution of the European steel industry in that it is the first greenfield investment in steel capacity in many decades and it will introduce hydrogen-based steelmaking to the European market.

Intesa Sanpaolo, through its IMI Corporate & Investing Division, is acting as Senior Mandated Lead Arranger, with a ticket of EUR 225M vis-à-vis an overall financing of EUR 3,5Bn dedicated to the mentioned project. The financing complies with LMA’s Green Loan standards, and it will also benefit from a EU Grant of EUR 250M, the largest grant ever provided to an industrial project by the European Union.

Overall, the project is expected to:

• produce 2,5 mtpa of green steel
• abate up to 95% of the CO₂ emissions commonly associated with the traditional blast furnace steelmaking technology, with an expected reduction of 2tCO2/tHRC
• use 99% of renewable energy out of total energy consumed by the Project
• obtain 50% average scrap reutilization in production

To be noticed also that the financing was awarded as Sustainability Deal of the Year 2023 by PFI, Project Finance International, a leading reporting provider for the Project Finance Industry.