Lakshmi and
Aditya Mittal
Steel
£12.9bn £100m
LAKSHMI MITTAL, who is 73, is executive
chairman of ArcelorMittal, a position he took
over in February 2021. Although his son, Adi-
tya, is only 47, he is already the chief executive
officer of the firm and being groomed to take
over from his father as head of the firm. In
some ways, Aditya is already captaining the
side.
Mittal’s daughter, Vanisha, who is four years
younger than her brother, is also on the board
of ArcelorMittal as a non-independent director.
The steel industry was badly affected by the
COVID pandemic. Just when its fortunes start-
ed to revive, the war in Ukraine disrupted ener-
gy prices, making steel production much more
expensive. As it is, the Mittals have a large plant
in Ukraine in Kryvyi Rih in the south of the
country. This was going to be mothballed, but
management agreed with the locals that it
should be kept going for “both business and
community reasons”. But only one of its three
blast forces is making steel in a plant working
at “20-25 per cent” of capacity.
For the Mittals, the big chal-
lenge is posed by climate
change. Steel is notorious
for producing huge quan-
tities of carbon dioxide.
There is a joke going
around in the steel in-
dustry, especially at
ArcelorMittal: “For
every tonne of steel
you make, you pro-
duce two tonnes of
carbon dioxide. So,
you could actually
say, steel compa-
nies are actually not
steel companies;
they are companies
that make carbon
dioxide, and steel is
a byproduct.”
In an effort to
reach the Net Zero
target by 2050, the
Mittals have bought
a couple of plants
that will help the
transition: the state-
of-the-art Compan-
hia Siderúrgica do Pe-
cém in northeast Brazil
and the Hot Briquetted
Iron (HBI) outfit in Cor-
pus Christi, Texas, in the
USA.
At the Indian plant in Hazira in Guja-
rat, which ArcelorMittal owns in a joint
venture with Nippon Steel of Japan, in-
creasing production of steel – initially
from nine million tonnes a year to 15m
tonnes and then to 20m tonnes – is al-
ready under way.
Across Europe – in Ghent in Belgium,
Spain, and France – the Mittals are in-
troducing new ways of making steel
using either natural gas or “green” hy-
drogen.
One prestige project that has gone to
the Mittals is the contract to make the
torches for the 2024 Olympic and Para-
lympic Games in Paris. ArcelorMittal
will
also manufacture
the mini-caul-
drons and
the “Spec-
taculars”,
the large Olympic
rings and Paralym-
pic agitos that will
be installed in Paris.
The high-tech torch-
es look very different
from the ones that
have been used in past
games. They are 70cm
long, have mini-
mum and
maxi-
mum diameters of 3.5cm and 10cm,
respectively, and will each weigh
1.5kg.
They will be made using steel from
three French plants, which is perhaps
a little ironic considering back in 2006,
both Arcelor and the French govern-
ment did everything possible to block
the hostile bid by Mittal Steel. Three
French sites have been carefully cho-
sen to produce steel with a reduced
carbon footprint.
At Châteauneuf, ArcelorMittal is cast-
ing 100 per cent recycled steel from
scrap. This chosen route produces
steel with a reduced carbon footprint.
The steel is then rolled at Florange, on
lines that are usually used for the most
demanding products in the automo-
tive and food packaging industries. Fi-
nally, the ArcelorMittal site at Woippy
cuts the steel sheet into blanks ready for shap-
ing. In total, there are 10 main components
that need to be assembled with meticulous
care.
Aditya is thrilled that ArcelorMittal has been
bestowed with a metaphorical medal even be-
fore the Olympics have begun.
He acknowledged: “It’s a privilege and a great
responsibility for ArcelorMittal to manufacture
the torches – such an iconic symbol of the
Olympic and Paralympic Games – for Paris
2024.
“ArcelorMittal’s teams are mobilising all their
expertise to produce high-quality steel with a
reduced carbon footprint, enabling us to create
a torch as beautiful as Mathieu Lehanneur im-
agined, and as sustainable as we want it to be. I
am delighted with this superb achievement
and congratulate all the ArcelorMittal teams
working on this fantastic project.”
It so happens that father and son ran with the
torch when the Olympic Games came to Lon-
don in 2012, so it is possible they will do the
same in Paris.
Although he has been giving increasing re-
sponsibility to his son, Mittal says he remains
“actively engaged in the business”, works full
time, and comes in daily to his offices in Berke-
ley Square in London.
He expects his staff to follow his example. It is
known he is not a fan of the hybrid or “work
from home” schools of thought. It seems many
of his staff, especially at senior levels, have
been with him for long periods of time. It is
said to be a “sticky” company that manages to
hold on to its talents.
To be sure, he has to travel extensively, visiting
his plants or leading politicians all over the
world. In Europe, he has managed to convince
governments that ArcelorMittal’s switch to
green methods of making steel has to be subsi-
dised by European Commission funding.
Today, he is widely recognised as probably
the most important man in the steel industry.
On a mission to produce
smarter steel
Mittal duo all set to take the steel industry into the green future
10
Asian Rich List
Eastern Eye Asian Rich List | 2024
STEELY RESOLVE: Lakshmi
Mittal; (above) a model of
ArcelorMittal’s Olympics torch;
(opposite page, top) Lakshmi Mittal,
Belgian prime minister Alexander
De Croo and Aditya Mittal and (bot-
tom) with the Olympic torch in
London in 2012