Thyssenkrupp urges lawmakers for clarity on decarbonising steel

DUESSELDORF (Reuters) - Thyssenkrupp, Europe's second-largest steelmaker, has urged policy-makers to quickly provide the regulatory conditions and support payments needed to decarbonise the sector.

"We are ready to go on the engineering side, but now a few things have to happen," Thyssenkrupp Steel Europe Chief Executive Bernhard Osburg said at the Handelsblatt hydrogen conference in Essen.

This includes applications for state subsidies that have been submitted for more than a year, Osburg said. "There are no commitments here yet ... If we don't have them, we won't be able to invest."

Thyssenkrupp, which wants to turn its steel production carbon-neutral by 2045, is one of the biggest CO2 polluters in Germany.

Germany's steel industry as a whole must invest about 30 billion euros ($32 billion) to become climate-neutral by 2050, the government has said, funds it cannot shoulder alone.

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(Reporting by Tom Kaeckenhoff; Writing by Christoph Steitz; editing by David Evans)