VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – US iron-ore company Cleveland-Cliffs of Ohio expects to break ground on its first hot-briquetted iron (HBI) plant in Toledo on Thursday.
The $700-million plant signals a strategic step change for the company, whose HBI product is expected to supply the growing electric arc furnace (EAF) steel industry.
The Toledo plant will produce 1.6-million metric tons a year of customised high-quality HBI, and will make Cleveland-Cliffs the only producer of high-quality customised feedstock for the domestic EAF steelmakers located in the Great Lakes region, and which market is estimated at about three-million tons a year.
Once the Toledo plant had reached commercial production, slated for the summer of 2020, its output is expected to supplant imports of commercial quality pig iron and HBI from countries such as Russia, Ukraine, Brazil and Venezuela, besides others.
“Today we are launching a new era for the iron and steel industry in the US. We are taking the initial steps to enable EAF steelmakers to produce the specs associated with high-margin steels for sophisticated end-markets, such as automotive and others,” president and CEO Lourenco Goncalves stated.
He likened the HBI product from the new Toledo plant to embody the same innovative milestone for the EAFs that Cliffs’ taconite pellets were, and continue to be, for its blast furnace clients.