Duisburg/Oberhausen.
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier is expected in Duisburg and Oberhausen today. Why the head of state visits the two cities.
On the occasion of his trip through the industrial state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will also be visiting two companies in the Ruhr area. Today, Tuesday, May 2nd, the German head of state will find out more about the transformation of the steel industry at Thyssenkrupp Steel (TKS) on the factory premises in the north of the city. Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s next stop will then be Air Liquide in Oberhausen.
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The visit begins at around 10:30 a.m. During a tour of the plant, Steinmeier is to stop at one of the blast furnaces, which are to be replaced by direct reduction plants in the future. TKS signed the contracts for the construction of the first DRI plant with SMS Siemag at the beginning of March, and it is scheduled to go into operation in 2026. In the future, the production of steel with regeneratively produced hydrogen should replace coking coal as an energy source and CO2– Massively reduce plant emissions.
Discussion with TKS boss Bernhard Osburg and RWE board member Dr. Sopna Sury
“The future of green steel: Opportunities and challenges for the industrial state of North Rhine-Westphalia” is the subject of a discussion in the plant’s coil warehouse, in which TKS CEO Bernhard Osburg and TKS General Works Council Chairman Tekin Nasikkol will be the Federal President’s discussion partners.
At the industrial gases company Air Liquide in Oberhausen, Steinmeier then wants to find out more about a plant for producing hydrogen, a so-called electrolyser. The plant, which was designed together with Siemens Energy, is already under construction and is scheduled to go into operation in September. It is to produce 2,900 tons of green hydrogen per year using climate-neutral electricity from water. The facility will be connected to an existing Air Liquide hydrogen pipeline. Air Liquide operates a 200 kilometer long hydrogen pipeline network on the Rhine and Ruhr. Based on this, a connecting pipeline to Thyssenkrupp in Duisburg was completed at the end of last year.
It is Steinmeier’s second visit to Duisburg during his term of office. He last visited the port during his tour of the Ruhr area in November 2019 and met the young company founders at the Duisport subsidiary Startport in the inner harbour. (with dpa)
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