7. Conclusion

As mentioned in the introduction, the steel industry is a major energy consumer worldwide. This is due both to the large global production of steel (almost 800 Mt/year of crude steel and over 700 Mt/year of finished steel, in the sense of hot-rolled steel products), and to the specific amount of energy consumed to produce one tonne of steel. Over the years, this specific consumption has fallen considerably, as shown in figures 10 and