Here you will find our press releases. Find out about the latest projects, orders, cooperations and other information about voestalpine.
Primetals Technologies, a global plant engineering company, voestalpine, the international steel and technology group, and Rio Tinto, one of the world’s leading mining companies, are taking a completely new and promising approach to researching steel production with net zero CO2 emissions. Today’s groundbreaking ceremony at the voestalpine location in Linz marks the start of construction of Hy4Smelt—the world’s first industrial-scale demonstration plant capable of combining two innovative technologies: a hydrogen-based direct reduction process for ultra-fine iron ores and an electric smelting process. The industrial-scale demonstration plant is scheduled to commence first production by the end of the 2027 calendar year, with the research project ending in 2030. The total costs amount to around EUR 170 million. Hy4Smelt is therefore the largest climate action research project in Austria.
voestalpine relies on the success factor of its own specialist training. With the start of the new training year on September 1, 372 young people across Austria are beginning their apprenticeships at the international steel and technology group. 169 apprentices are starting in Upper Austria, 160 in Styria, and 43 in Lower Austria. voestalpine currently offers attractive career prospects to around 1,600 apprentices worldwide—1,070 of them in Austria. This makes the Group the largest industrial apprentice trainer in the country.
The third edition of the voestalpine cares run, the steel and technology group’s global exercise initiative, was once again a great success this year. Under the motto “Running together for a good cause,” employees worldwide were once again able to collect more than 1.1 million kilometers of “cares” in just under three months by running, walking, hiking, wheelchair riding, or hand biking. These “cares” were converted by voestalpine into donations for charitable purposes. Donations totaling EUR 700,000 were handed over to Doctors Without Borders, Hilfswerk International, the Austrian Red Cross, and UNICEF Austria for chosen national and international aid projects. For the first time, the voestalpine cares run was awarded first prize in the “Large Companies” category by “Wirtschaft hilft.”
voestalpine has produced the world’s first hydrogen-based rail at its Donawitz site as part of a pilot project. The “green” rail consists of a mix of scrap and hydrogen-reduced pure iron, which was produced in the HYFOR pilot plant in Donawitz. The raw material was melted down in the company’s own TechMet research steelworks in Donawitz and then processed into the finished rail in the neighboring rail rolling mill. Like all rails produced by voestalpine, the hydrogen-based rail is particularly hard and highly wear-resistant. The first rail of this type has now been laid at Linz Central Station.
voestalpine and VERBUND are further extending the successful and one of the world’s longest-running PEM electrolysis plants, H2FUTURE, in Linz. The expansion includes the production, compression, purification, storage, loading, and further use of green hydrogen. To this end, the plant at the voestalpine site—commissioned in 2019 as the world’s largest hydrogen pilot project at the time—will be expanded to include a compression and purification plant, as well as five hydrogen storage tanks. The costs for expanding the research project amount to EUR 16.4 million.
At today’s 33rd Annual General Meeting of voestalpine AG, a dividend of EUR 0.60 per share was agreed for the business year 2024/25 (previous year: EUR 0.70). The payment of the dividend will be made starting July 15, 2025 (ex-dividend day: July 10, 2025). voestalpine has paid dividends to its shareholders every year since its IPO in 1995. Starting with the 2025/26 business year, the Group is adjusting its dividend policy and will in future propose a dividend of 30% of earnings per share, but at least EUR 0.40 (per share), to the Annual General Meeting. Another item on the agenda was the election of Reinhard Schwendtbauer as a new member of the Supervisory Board of voestalpine AG. The CEO of Raiffeisenlandesbank Oberösterreich AG succeeds Heinrich Schaller.
voestalpine AG’s Management Board today passed the resolution of a new capital allocation strategy, which will support the implementation of the 2030+ corporate strategy by providing clear guidelines for investment decisions, management of the balance sheet structure and the dividend policy.
In a letter to the federal government, voestalpine has called for fair play for Austria’s energy-intensive industry and therefore for the continued use of the electricity price compensation. Most EU countries have been using this instrument for more than 10 years and some have already extended it until 2030—but Austria has not. In the Steel and Metals Action Plan, the EU Commission recently expressly pointed out to the member states that they should make use of the effective option of the electricity price brake in order to improve the competitiveness of energy-intensive companies with national measures.