Nippon Steel to invest $6 billion in electric arc furnaces at three plants in Japan

Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel plans to invest almost JPY870 billion ($6.05 billion) in the introduction of electric arc furnaces at three of its facilities in Japan to reduce carbon emissions. This is stated in the company’s message.

Part of the funding will come from the Japanese government – the authorities plan to subsidize the company’s decarbonization efforts focused on three enterprises by 251 billion yen by fiscal year 2028/2029. As noted, the steelmaker was selected to participate in the program based on the Green Transformation Promotion Act.

As part of the announced investment, Nippon Steel will build a new electric arc furnace at its Kyushu Works plant, as well as expand and restart capacity at two other facilities. The total capacity of the projects will be 2.9 million tons per year.

At the end of last year, Nippon Steel announced that it was the first in the world to achieve a 43% reduction in carbon emissions in a test furnace at East Nippon Works (Kimitsu Area). This result was achieved during tests that took place from November to December 2024. In total, the corporation is developing three super-innovative technologies as part of the Nippon Steel Carbon Neutral Vision 2050 project with the support of the Japanese government.

As GMK Center reported earlier, on May 23, US President Donald Trump announced a planned partnership between US Steel and Japan’s Nippon Steel. The deal is key to the Japanese company’s global expansion strategy, but its format remains unknown.