Could ECAs finance cleaner steel & industrial hubs?

(Clean Technica, Bradenton FL, 15 August 2023) The climate finance community should be watching Sweden. Swedish steelmaker H2 Green Steel (H2GS), founded in 2020 to produce (using renewable hydrogen), is completing a landmark €5 billion+ fundraise for its first plant in Boden, near the Arctic Circle in northern Sweden, an industrial project finance template is taking shape and it’s important: heavy industry produces 30% of global carbon emissions and steelmaking is 7% alone. Export credit agencies may be less nimble than private lenders, due to the government oversight and political constraints they must operate within. But for these first-of-a-kind deals, they are proving to be powerful allies, both as debt guarantors and direct lenders. In the H2GS deal, Swedish ECA Svensk Exportkredit participated in the €3.3 billion senior debt tranche alongside commercial banks. Meanwhile, the core ECA, Allianz-owned Euler Hermes, committed to guaranteeing €1.5 billion of the senior debt.