Stegra needs more cash to finish Boden plant, swaps in new CEO Hakan Buskhe

Stegra, the Swedish green steel maker building a hydrogen-powered plant in Boden, said it needs more capital to finish construction after a 100-day review by its new owner group found costs running well above what was assumed just months ago. The company also announced that founding chief executive Henrik Henriksson is stepping down, handing the role to Hakan Buskhe, a former Saab chief executive and sitting Stegra board member, from 1 November 2026.

The announcement matters for Europe's heavy-industry transition because Stegra's Boden project is one of the continent's largest bets on replacing coal with green hydrogen in steelmaking. A funding gap at this stage, after the company closed a large financing round only months earlier, signals how expensive it still is to build first-of-a-kind industrial plants at scale, even with committed customers and deep-pocketed backers lined up.

Why the budget moved

A new ownership group and board took control of Stegra in June 2026 and immediately began an in-depth review of the company and the Boden project, working with outside advisers. According to the company, that review confirmed the production timeline is still achievable and the underlying business case remains strong, with some ongoing talks that could still improve the project's cost position.

The complication is money. Stegra said the estimated cost of finishing the plant is significantly higher than the board assumed when it took over in June. It blamed much of the increase on ramp-up costs tied to an earlier period in which construction work was scaled back, plus general inflation. The company said its review of accounting, project monitoring and cost control is essentially finished, and that a new project plan is now in place to complete the plant.

Leif Johansson, chair of Stegra's board, said the board had flagged this risk from the start. When the new owners took over, he said, they believed the financing would be sufficient but could not rule out needing more. "The financing need is greater than we had hoped, but we have a robust plan to complete the project."

Johansson said the board has also found more room for outsourcing and partnerships than it first expected. His confidence in the project has grown rather than shrunk since June, he added. Stegra is now in active talks with shareholders, financiers and partners to close the gap. The company said its largest shareholders have responded positively to taking part in securing the extra capital. No figure for the shortfall was given. Talks are continuing at high intensity, Stegra said.

A founder hands over, construction carries on

The leadership change closes out the tenure of Henrik Henriksson, who built the company from an idea into what Johansson called "one of Europe's most important industrial projects." Henriksson, who led Stegra through its years as H2 Green Steel before the 2024 rebrand, is not leaving entirely: he will stay on as an adviser during the handover, a role the company says draws on his knowledge of the project's history.

His successor, Buskhe, previously ran Saab and now works for Wallenberg Investments, the Swedish industrial investment group that led the consortium behind Stegra's ownership change in June. Temasek and the IMAS Foundation were also part of that consortium. Johansson said Buskhe's experience running large industrial operations through transformation is exactly what the company needs now.

"Henrik has built this company from an idea into one of Europe's most important industrial projects." — Leif Johansson, Chair of the Board

Stegra said work at the Boden site continues and that commitments to suppliers and customers, which include carmakers such as Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Porsche and Scania, remain unchanged for now. The company has raised capital in stages since 2020, including a roughly $1.4bn round that closed in June 2026 under the new ownership structure and a 2024 equity top-up from backers such as Microsoft's Climate Innovation Fund and Siemens Financial Services alongside billions in debt financing.

What is not yet public is how large the new financing gap actually is, or on what terms existing and new investors might fill it. Stegra said only that it will share more detail once talks with its stakeholders produce a result, leaving open how much dilution, debt or delay the extra round of financing will cost Europe's best-known green steel project.