McDermott to manage Heracless hydrogen project

Indian steel-making company Tata Steel has picked U.S. offshore engineering player McDermott to shape and manage the execution of the hydrogen project Heracless near Amsterdam.

McDermott International will be a part of an integrated project management team (IPMT) to shape and manage the execution of project Heracless (hydrogen era, carbonless). The project is located at Tata Steel’s facilities in IJmuiden, 30 kilometres east of Amsterdam.

The project is focused on the implementation of direct reduced iron plant (DRP) and reducing electrical furnace (REF) technology at the facility as the basis for Tata Steel’s sustainable hydrogen-based steel production.

Tareq Kawash, senior vice president, Onshore of McDermott, said: “We look forward to continuing to work with Tata Steel to reduce emissions and progress their strategic roadmap toward carbon-neutral steel production by 2050.”

“What we do is a complicated and unique operation,” explained Annemarie Manger, sustainability director of Tata Steel. “The new plants will be built on our site while all the current plants will remain in operation until the new installations are up and running. That requires intense integration between facilities and close collaboration between all parties and our people. The coalition that is now formed with McDermott, together with suppliers such as Danieli and Hatch, marks the start of the basic engineering to define our plans more specifically.”

Work on the project will be executed from McDermott’s center in The Hague, the Netherlands, and Tata Steel’s facilities in IJmuiden.