Voestalpine announced it has secured a contract for the supply of HBI for Mexico’s long steel producer Tyasa.
According to the Austrian steelmaker, HBI will be supplied from its direct reduction plant located in Texas, which is expected to start up this summer.
Voestalpine said Tyasa’s plant in the city of Orizaba, in the state of Veracruz, should receive the supply of “several hundred thousand” mt of the material for “the coming years,” noting that “in the future” Tyasa will produce high-quality flat steels, which require the use of ore-based pre-materials.
“We can achieve a jump in production quality by using Voestalpine HBI in the modern electric arc furnaces at the site in Orizaba. We also reduce our dependence on Mexico’s volatile scrap market and imports of scrap from the US,” said Oscar Chahin Trueba, CEO at Tyasa.
Voestalpine’s new direct reduction plant is expected to produce 2 million mt of HBI per year, effective in the next business year.
About 40 percent or 800,000 mt of the pre-material used in steel production should be destined for Voestalpine’s Austrian production sites in Linz and Donawitz, where it will serve to further optimize the production process, while the remaining 60 percent should be sold to “external partners,” which are primarily steel producers in the NAFTA region.