In this article, you can find the list of top HBI exporters/importers and also top HBI manufacturers/suppliers by country.
Note: this article is not related to Healthy Buildings International or Healthcare Business International or Hanes Brands Inc or Hans-Bredow-Institute for Media Research at the University of Hamburg.
What is HBI?
HBI has applications in EAFs (Electric Arc Furnaces), BOF (Basic Oxygen Furnaces), and BFs (Blast Furnaces) although most of HBI is used in EAFs of which the market share in 2018 was around 76%. Growing demand for HBI is boosting the global market of this product. Additionally, many steel producers across the world are shifting their means of steel production from traditional BFs technology to electric furnace (EAF) process because of the increasing environmental pollution.
A premium form of DRI, Hot Briquetted Iron (HBI) is compacted at a temperature above 650 ˚C with a density above 5,000 Kg/m3.
HBI was developed being a product to overcome the problems related to the handling and shipping of DRI – as a result of the compaction process, it is very much less porous and consequently very much less reactive than DRI and will not be affected from the self-heating risk which we can see in DRI.
HBI Exporters and Importers
According to Metal Bulletin estimates based on IIMA data, In 2017, global exports of HBI, outpaced 6 million tons, excluding in-house shipments. In 2016, the volume was about 4 million tons.
The export market has been grown by around 1 million tons in 2018.
In 2017, with exporting 2.8 million tons, Russia was the major worldwide HBI supplier – all supplied by Metalloinvest, according to IIMA data – with greater than 40% of the global HBI market share.
In an operational report, Metalloinvest said that they sold a total of 3.6 million tons of HBI in 2017. They increased their production to 4.5 million tons per annum after starting their 1.8 million-tpy HBI-3 factory in July 2017. They had room to rise shipments by around 900,000 tons in 2018.
Venezuela is the second largest HBI supplier, despite continuing troubles with supplying raw materials, due to the country’s economic crisis and inadequate operational funds and difficulties with energy supplies. In 2017, Venezuela exported 1.05 million tons of HBI.
The third HBI leading supplier in 2017 was the United States. In 2016, Austria’s Voestalpine exported around 1 million tons from its 2 million-tpy US HBI factory in Texas, including in-house shipment to its Austrian factories and Mexico, according to IIMA data.
Iran is a developing source of iron ore pellets with increasing exports of DRI/HBI every year. In 2017, the country exported near 600,000 tons of DRI/HBI and shipments was anticipated to reach about 1 million tons in 2019 as said by Iranian sources.
India, Malaysia, and Libya were other DRI and HBI exporters and shipped a total of around 1.8 million tons in 2017.
With regard to the demand in 2017, the US was the largest consumer of DRI/HBI, importing near 1.8 million tons, as stated by the International Steel Statistics Bureau (ISSB). Nearly all volumes were shipped from US steelmaker Nucor’s Nu-Iron facility in Trinidad & Tobago in the Caribbean.
The second-largest buyer was Italy, importing 1.12 million tons of HBI in 2016, according to ISSB.
Mexico, Spain, Austria, and South Korea were also major HBI consumers.
IIMA anticipates the demand for DRI/HBI to increase in India and Iran.
“In India, the national steel plan foresees a demand of 80 million tons of DRI, based on an annual crude steel output of 300 million tons,” according to Barrington.
Manufacturers/Suppliers List
Manufacturer/Supplier of Hot Briquetted Iron in Russia
Manufacturer/Supplier of Hot Briquetted Iron Venezuela
Manufacturer/Supplier of Hot Briquetted Iron Austria
Manufacturer/Supplier of Hot Briquetted Iron Oman
Manufacturer/Supplier of Hot Briquetted Iron Qatar
Manufacturer/Supplier of Hot Briquetted Iron India
Sources:
- metalbulletin.com
- marketwatch.com
- brandessenceresearch.biz
