Blastr Green Steel hires former Big River executive

Blastr Green Steel, a Finland-based company developing a low-emissions steel mill in Inkoo, Finland, has appointed Mark Bula as its new CEO.

Bula has 35 years of experience in the global steel industry that includes a stint at Arkansas-based electric arc furnace steelmaker Big River Steel, which was acquired by United States Steel Corp.

According to Blastr, Bula will drive its strategic development, capital-raising and project execution, leveraging extensive C-suite and startup experience, which includes being first in demonstrating European demand and an attainable price premium for decarbonized steel.

Bula, who will be based in Finland, takes over for Hans Fredrik Wittusen, who Blastr credits for leading it through its project maturation and pre-feasibility stages. Bula will start his role at Blastr in May.

"Mark’s strategic vision, leadership skills and proven clean steel track record will be invaluable assets as we continue to develop our projects and strategic platform together with customers, partners and investors,” says Lars-Eric Aaro, board chair and co-founder of Blastr.

“Mark has delivered commercial development that has unlocked significant financing for startup projects while developing go-to-market strategies in the Nordics, Europe, the Middle East, and the U.S. This experience makes him ideal to lead Blastr into the next development stages, building upon the foundation laid by the Blastr team and partners to date.”

“Global steel production needs to transform at scale to provide customers and end users with decarbonized green steel," Bula adds. "We are in the infancy of this transition [that] will fundamentally change how we make the world’s most important engineering and construction material.”

Blastr intends to make its low-carbon steel with CO₂ emissions that are 90 percent or more lower than some existing mills. The company says it will use hydrogen energy instead of coal in the production process.

The company will use direct-reduced iron (DRI) made with nonfossil-fuel energy as one type of feedstock. A spokesperson from Blastr also told Recycling Today last year, “Recycled scrap metal is indeed planned to be used as feedstock for the steelmaking process.”

Bula previously served as chief commercial officer at H2 Green Steel in Sweden and had been the chief revenue officer and chief commercial officer at Big River Steel.

"It has been an honor to lead Blastr in a formative period," Wittusen says. "I am immensely proud of what we have accomplished together and am confident of the company's continued success under Mark's leadership.”

“We highly appreciate what Hans Fredrik and the team [have] developed thus far,” Aaro adds. “His high-quality work and efforts to bring Blastr to this stage have been invaluable.”