Sandip Biswas is the Chief Investment Officer of GFG Alliance, and is responsible for the implementation of business and investment strategies. He is also leading GFG Alliance projects aimed at achieving carbon neutrality by 2030. He applies his extensive experience in decarbonisation activities here. A graduate in commerce from the University of Calcutta. He is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India and the Institute of Company Secretaries of India. Prior to joining GFG, he worked for Tata Steel where he had held senior management positions for seventeen years.
Innovation and modernisation are the foundation of Liberty‘s upcoming transformation. What is the prerequisite for a company to become a producer of green steel and achieve carbon neutrality?
We are convinced that the way the world makes and uses steel today must change. We want to turn steelmaking — which is currently one of the biggest industrial carbon emitters — into a low-carbon industry as well as one of the cleanest. To become carbon neutral by 2030 is an ambitious vision, but we need to start now and drive the transformation for future generations.
That is why LIBERTY has pledged it will be carbon neutral by 2030 (CN30) through its GREENSTEEL strategy, underpinned by major renewable energy projects. Therefore, at LIBERTY Ostrava, we will be installing Europe’s first hybrid electric furnaces. This will make steel production less dependent on coal which causes much of our carbon emissions. The investment programme also includes the construction of solar and wind power plants.
A prerequisite for managing transformation is a well-composed management team. So, as a global company, is the multinational structure of the management team an advantage?
LIBERTY Steel has multiculturalism and multinationalism in its DNA. After all, our owner Sanjeev Gupta was born in India, studied in the United Kingdom and has built a global company with more than 30,000 employees in more than 30 countries. Our global senior management team comes from a wide array of countries — Australia, India, Luxembourg, Switzerland, the UK and the US. The management of our plants is primarily local, but the benefi t of being a global group is that we can overlay that local experience with expertise from all over the world.
In 2021, you managed to achieve great production results. What was the main reason for such a successful year?
It is true that 2021 has been one of the best years in LIBERTY Ostrava’s history. The company is now generating excellent revenues and is running at full capacity. Compare this to 2019, the year in which we bought LIBERTY Ostrava, which saw the biggest decline of the global steel industry since 2008. It meant that in the first two years we had to support the company with over CZK 3.6 billion just to keep production running and preserve jobs, both through the downturn due to the declining steel market and the slowdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, over that period we focused on improving the business’s underlying commercial and operational performance. This has meant that in 2021, with customer demand exceeding supply, we were finally able to reap the benefits.
So what has LIBERTY Ostrava been investing in recently?
LIBERTY plans to invest billions of Czech korunas over the course of the next eight years in Ostrava’s GREENSTEEL transformation programme. The key element of the programme will be the replacement of the steelwork’s existing four tandem furnaces with two hybrid electric arc furnaces. However, there are also a range of other investments already underway. Last year, for example, we launched an investment of almost CZK 1 billion to modernis and upgrade our Steckel mill — the only producer of hot-rolled strip steel in the Czech Republic — to improve its reliability, sustainability, product quality and capacity.
The impact of energy prices on production is certainly huge. Are you able to fi nd savings based on smart solutions?
Since energy prices started to rise sharply last year, we have been very focused on making savings. We have introduced a number of cost and energy saving projects including the replacement of 3,000 light bulbs in the steelworks with new, more economical LED lighting, saving 6,800 MWh per year and reducing electricity costs by more than CZK 200 million a year. We will continue to look for more energy saving options.
How do you build a relationship with the neighbouring communities? Will the transformation reduce the impact on the environment, and how do you help?
LIBERTY Ostrava is a strategic Czech company and an employer of 6,000 people, with another 30,000 depending on us across the global supply chain. We are a partner of many cultural events, including Colours of Ostrava, the Leoš Janáček International Music Festival and the Summer Shakespeare Festival, as well as entities such as the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra Ostrava. We also support the Ostrava Centre for Individual Sports and para ice hockey, which is developing signifi cantly in the country as well as in this region and has already hosted two World Championships. In addition, we are now helping to build a para ice hockey development centre.
As far as the plant’s impact on the environment is concerned, we have invested over CZK 8 billion over the last decade to reduce our particle emissions by more than 85%. I believe that we are entering a period where heavy industry will be seen not as a burden on the environment, but as a strategic sector contributing to the economic, social and environmental prosperity of the region where it is based.
Thank you for the interview.
