US-headquartered Cleveland-Cliffs, a major iron ore producer in North America, is considering resuming the construction of its hot briquetted iron (HBI) project site in Toledo, Ohio in the second half of 2020, according to Cliffs' chairman, president and CEO Lourenco Goncalves. “The pandemic and associated manufacturing stoppages have created a severe scarcity of scrap in the marketplace that further increases demand and magnifies the value of our HBI,” he stated.
Cleveland-Cliffs was expected to start selling HBI in June this year, as SteelOrbis had reported previously. However, on March 20 the company was forced to temporarily shut down construction activities due to Covid-19 concerns. The complex will have a designed capacity of 1.9 million mt of HBI per year.