Italy’s Marcegaglia Steel has signed two loans totalling €800 million to build a steel complex in Fos-sur-Mer, France. The project, worth more than €1 billion, is the group’s largest-ever industrial investment.
The loans have an 11-year term, with funds to be disbursed over the next three years. Eighty percent of the financing is guaranteed by Italy’s export credit agency SACE and Bpifrance Assurance Export. The loans include an incentive mechanism tied to the group’s environmental and social targets.
The Fos-sur-Mer plant is planned to produce 2 million tonnes of electric-furnace steel and more than 3 million tonnes of hot-rolled carbon and stainless steel. Upstream integration is expected to cover 35–40% of Marcegaglia’s slab and coil requirements.
“We will be able to produce what will be more difficult to find on the market,” group chairman Antonio Marcegaglia said at the European Steel Forum in Udine in late October.
The company expects to produce its first slab in the first quarter of 2029 and its first coil in the third or fourth quarter of that year. Production will use scrap, low-carbon direct reduced iron and nuclear energy. Marcegaglia said the combination could cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80% compared with traditional methods.
The banking syndicate includes Intesa Sanpaolo, BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole, UniCredit, Santander, BPER, Banco BPM and ING.
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