Logistics: essential for ArcelorMittal

France ranks 18th worldwide among steel producers, with output of 11 million metric tons in 2024. To echo the words of Alain Le Grix de la Salle, president of ArcelorMittal France, spoken before the National Assembly in January 2025, “steel is everywhere around us. In our cars, our household appliances, our buildings, our wind turbines, our beverage cans, our ships built in Saint-Nazaire, nuclear power, and also our defense industry. Steel is a matter of national sovereignty.” 52% of the steel produced by ArcelorMittal in France is intended for the construction sector. The Indian group is Europe’s leader by revenue, the world’s number two, and overwhelmingly dominates the French market.

The group’s two major blast furnaces in France are located in Dunkirk (59), home to Europe’s largest steel complex, and Fos-sur-Mer (13). The steel coils manufactured there are then shipped by rail and truck to the Contrisson plant (55), which covers 34,000 sq. m. on a 24-hectare site. There, they are pickled, rolled, galvanized and pre-painted, before being processed on site into cladding, roofing products or sandwich panels. “Both a subsidiary and a customer of the group, ArcelorMittal Building Solutions, which manufactures all the products needed for a building’s metal envelope, thus controls the entire production chain for its products,” says Prisca Lopez Voeltzel, low-carbon lead at ArcelorMittal Building Solutions France. Eight other production sites across France enable the manufacturer, thanks to its dense national network, to stay as close as possible to its customers’ construction sites. Every year, approximately 58,000 metric tons of steel, or around 9,700 coils, are delivered to the Meuse site.

“Our local production units, partly supplied by the Contrisson plant, help ensure responsive local deliveries and receive 14,769 coils in France, for an average tonnage of 98,000 metric tons, Prisca Lopez Voeltzel explains. Moreover, in 2025, we dispatched around 270 trucks so that customers could collect their goods as close as possible to their onward delivery location.” Given these volumes, and as part of its CSR strategy, ArcelorMittal examined the environmental impact of its inter-site transportation and introduced alternative powertrains, such as the use of B100 fuel. The group aims to reduce transportation-related greenhouse-gas emissions by 30% by 2030.

Given the many possible references, production at the various plants is made to order: different geometries, thicknesses, coating grades, colors, low-carbon steel solutions or conventional steel… “There is very little inventory of finished products, Prisca Lopez Voeltzel comments. The number of different products is vast, ranging from the most standard to custom-made. The organic coating must also be suited to the building’s environment: the same one will not be used by the sea, in the countryside, in a highly polluted atmosphere, near an airport, in a chemical environment or in a city center… Moreover, we do not keep an already pre-painted coil in inventory for more than six months, in order to guarantee the quality and durability of what we sell.” As a result, only the “raw” coils from the blast furnaces are held in stock, reducing lead times once an order has been placed.

In the face of international competition, in addition to a sustainable-development objective, low-carbon steel appears to be a competitive advantage that the group intends to capitalize on in France. Steel is the world’s second most traded material, just behind oil. According to figures provided by Eurofer, (an association bringing together steel-industry stakeholders), the steel industry currently accounts globally for 7% of greenhouse-gas emissions, and 5% in France. Its decarbonization will therefore have a more than significant effect on the carbon footprint of economic activity, while also presenting a growth opportunity for steelmakers. “These figures are linked to growing steel production and the need for this material in our daily lives, Prisca Lopez Voetzel points out. At the same time, it is the most circular material, as it is 100% recyclable, indefinitely, without ever losing its physical and mechanical performance. Even steel-production waste, blast-furnace slag, can be recovered for use in low-carbon cement production.”

“Decarbonization is achieved not only by using 75% recycled steel, which has exactly the same properties as conventional steel, but also by decarbonizing our production sites,” Prisca Lopez Voeltzel explains. Thus, XCarb, from recycled and renewable sources, is now produced in an electric arc furnace in Sestao, Spain, using energy generated 100% by photovoltaic panels and wind turbines. In the coming years, the French blast furnaces in Dunkirk and Fos-sur-Mer will benefit from the same technological developments.” Low-carbon steel production, using scrap steel made possible by electric furnaces, offers numerous advantages, particularly for logistics, further reducing the steel industry’s carbon footprint: it can be deployed close to scrap-metal sources and storage sites, end users and shipping ports; it uses a smaller volume of raw materials; and it provides greater flexibility, enabling production to be changed more quickly…

“For ArcelorMittal Building Solutions France, the logistics real-estate sector is an important and attractive market to serve. As it seeks low-carbon solutions, XCarb steel is a solution that changes neither schedules nor construction methods, while reducing the carbon footprint of our products by up to 55%, making it an attractive solution for this market,” the low-carbon lead says enthusiastically. The continued growth in demand since the first project in 2024 confirms the sector’s appetite for this decarbonized material.” For many years, logistics real estate has in fact been seeking to reduce its carbon footprint by using more sustainable materials. As steel is essential to building construction, its decarbonization can only be very good news for companies committed to sustainable development.