Sells Billets & Blooms, Billets-Blooms, Alloy steel, Cold Rolled +8
Buys Billets & Blooms, Angles, Ferro alloys, Iron ore +4
Buys Billets & Blooms, Angles, Ferro alloys, Iron ore +4
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Iron made by removing the oxygen from iron ore pellets or lump with a reducing gas, without melting it. The product keeps the pellet's shape but is porous like a sponge and about 90–94% iron. DRI is the main iron source for electric arc furnaces in the Middle East, where cheap natural gas made direct reduction the region's steelmaking route.
In direct reduction iron oxide is reduced in the solid state, at about 800–1,050 °C, by a gas rich in hydrogen and carbon monoxide. In the gas-based shaft processes that dominate world production — MIDREX and HYL/Energiron — pellets or lump descend through a tall shaft furnace against a rising stream of reducing gas made by reforming natural gas, and leave at the bottom as metallic iron. In India, the world's largest producer, much DRI is also made in coal-fired rotary kilns.
Two numbers describe DRI: total iron (about 90–94%) and metallisation, the share of that iron which is metallic rather than oxide (typically 92–96%). The rest of the product is the gangue carried over from the pellet — silica, alumina, lime, magnesia — and carbon, from about 1% in classic gas-based DRI to over 4% in high-carbon grades, which adds chemical energy in the arc furnace. Because the gangue is not removed, DRI quality depends directly on the pellet.
DRI is pyrophoric: its fresh porous surface reoxidises in air and in contact with water releases hydrogen, so cold DRI is passivated, stored dry and shipped under strict rules — the IMSBC Code classes DRI (A) as hot-moulded briquettes, DRI (B) as lumps, pellets and cold-moulded briquettes, and DRI (C) as fines, with (B) and (C) requiring inerting. That is why traded DRI is usually compacted into hot briquetted iron, and why integrated plants charge DRI hot (HDRI) straight into the furnace.
The GCC and Iran are among the world's largest DRI producers. Gas-based plants run at SABIC's Hadeed in Saudi Arabia, Emirates Steel in Abu Dhabi, Qatar Steel and Jindal Shadeed in Oman, and Iran operates many MIDREX and HYL modules, with Mobarakeh Steel the largest. Direct reduction with hydrogen in place of natural gas is the industry's main route to low-carbon steel, and several Gulf projects are being designed with that in mind.
DRI is bought on analysis; these are the ISO methods and the shipping rules that apply.
| Region | Standard | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| International | ISO 10835 ISO |
Direct reduced iron and hot briquetted iron — sampling and sample preparation |
| International | ISO 5416 ISO |
Direct reduced iron — determination of metallic iron by the bromine-methanol titrimetric method |
| International | ISO 4701 ISO |
Iron ores and direct reduced iron — determination of size distribution by sieving |
| International | ISO 11323 ISO |
Iron ore and direct reduced iron — vocabulary |
| International | IMSBC Code | IMO International Maritime Solid Bulk Cargoes Code — schedules DRI (A), DRI (B) and DRI (C) for shipping direct reduced iron |
Grade equivalents and the standards bodies: Steel grades & standards
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