McDermott International has been selected by Tata Steel IJmuiden B.V. to be part of an Integrated Project Management Team to shape and manage the execution of low-carbon steel project, Heracless. This is part of Tata Steel's ambition to decarbonize the steel sector with H₂ steel. The project is located at Tata Steel's facilities in IJmuiden, 19 mi (30 km) east of Amsterdam.

The project is focused on the implementation of Direct Reduced Iron Plant and Reducing Electrical Furnace technology at the facility as the basis for Tata Steel's sustainable hydrogen-based steel production.

"Decades of experience executing mega-scale projects from concept to delivery combined with our ability to leverage knowledge from one phase to the next, make us the ideal partner to jointly develop and manage this innovative project," said Tareq Kawash, Senior Vice President, Onshore of McDermott. "We look forward to continuing to work with Tata Steel to reduce emissions and progress their strategic roadmap toward carbon-neutral steel production by 2050."

"What we do is a complicated and unique operation," said Annemarie Manger, Sustainability Director of Tata Steel. "The new plants will be built on our site while all the current plants will remain in operation until the new installations are up and running. That requires intense integration between facilities and close collaboration between all parties and our people. The coalition that is now formed with McDermott, together with suppliers such as Danieli and Hatch, marks the start of the basic engineering to define our plans more specifically."

Work on the project will be executed from McDermott's center of excellence in The Hague, the Netherlands and Tata Steel's facilities in IJmuiden.