Green steel plant in Sweden clears 2 big hurdles but still is not making steel
A green steel plant in Sweden cleared 2 major hurdles in 2026, but it still has not made any steel. Stegra is building the plant in Boden, a town in northern Sweden, to make steel using hydrogen instead of coal. Hydrogen made by splitting water with clean electricity, a process called electrolysis, replaces the coal that traditional steel mills burn to strip oxygen from iron ore, a step called direct reduction. Stegra says the swap cuts carbon dioxide emissions by up to 95% compared with the traditional coal based method, a figure that is the company own claim, not independently checked by any source this article used.
In June 2026 the plant own direct reduction tower, the 145 meter structure where hydrogen actually replaces coal, reached its full height. That same month Stegra closed a 1.4 billion euro financing round to finish building and commissioning the rest of the plant. Neither milestone means the plant is making steel. Independent reporting from April 2026 says finishing construction still leaves another 18 to 24 months of commissioning before steel production actually starts, and Stegra own construction partner still described the site as being built, not running, as recently as September 2026.
A funding crisis came before the financing win
The 1.4 billion euro close followed a real scare. In December 2025 the Swedish Energy Agency awarded Stegra only 41 million euros through its Industriklivet grant programme, a quarter of the 168 million euros the company had requested. Stegra still needed to raise about 1 billion euros more by spring 2026 just to keep building. Leif Johansson, an adviser to the investor group behind the plant, said the half finished mill running at only a fraction of its planned pace made him sad to see as an industrialist, a sign of how close the project came to stalling. Hakan Buskhe, Head of Special Investments at Wallenberg Investments, one of the investors behind the June close, called the round a step for the country own competitiveness.
This large-scale green project represents an important step in Sweden's competitiveness and the EU's security of supply.
Hakan Buskhe, Head of Special Investments at Wallenberg Investments. Source 3.
The still needed figure is Stegra own estimate of what it had left to raise as of December 2025, reported by GCN, the amount the June 2026 financing round in the next chart later closed.
Show the numbers
| Requested, grant | 168 |
| Awarded, grant | 41 |
| Still needed, by spring 2026 | 1000 |
The financing closed on June 24, 2026. Counting that new round, Stegra has now raised 6.5 billion euros in loans and equity, on top of the earlier 41 million euro government grant.
The 3 bars are 3 separate amounts, not parts that add up to a total. The 41 million euro grant is sourced to the Swedish Energy Agency award, source 5, the same figure shown in the funding gap chart above. The 6,500 million euro total is sourced to Stegra own site and Canary Media, sources 1 and 4, and was raised before this round.
Show the numbers
| Energy Agency, grant | 41 |
| June 2026, financing round | 1400 |
| Total raised, in loans and equity | 6500 |
The plant is still under construction, not running
Stegra own technical description of the Boden plant lists a 700 megawatt hydrogen electrolyzer, the machine that splits water into hydrogen using electricity, built across a 270 hectare site, figures found by reading the company own page directly. A second tower, the 110 meter melt shop where the steel itself gets its final treatment, reached its full height in March 2025. Canary Media reported the plant was 60% complete as of fall 2025, and that Stegra own original goal of finishing construction by late 2026 is now under review.
Caroline Ashley, Executive Director of the industry group SteelWatch, called the financing close a sign of real progress.
Stegra securing the future of its Boden green steel plant is a welcome development that signals the change towards truly clean steelmaking at scale is happening.
Caroline Ashley, Executive Director of SteelWatch. Source 4.
The progress she describes still needs those 18 to 24 months of commissioning in northern Sweden before the plant actually makes steel.